Verrrry Interrrresting.....

[stpaulcat]

That the University of Minnesota is WAY ahead of the brightest and richest university in the midwest in terms of athletics.

This post was edited on 2/27 11:41 PM by stpaulcat

UMN athletic facility

 

[Cat In The Cradle]

The twenty or so pictures provided within the link are worth a look: hydrotherapy pools, state of the art weightlifting and conditioning rooms, as well as futuristic looking rehabilitation center. Seems like something like this would solve a lot of NU's injury, strength, and organizational problems.

 

[Turk]

The money being spent on football at minny has already netted a spike in wins by attracting better coaches and players. Unfortunately its tough for private schools like nu to match the entire state funded programs.

I was impressed with nu lakefront but its starting to now look like the Fake on the Lake.

 

[Gladeskat]

Originally posted by Cat In The Cradle:
The twenty or so pictures provided within the link are worth a look: hydrotherapy pools, state of the art weightlifting and conditioning rooms, as well as futuristic looking rehabilitation center. Seems like something like this would solve a lot of NU's injury, strength, and organizational problems.

Glassy facilities won't solve ANY of NU's injury, strength and organizational problems! All they are good for is RECRUITING!

The real benefit of moving the football facilities on campus is accessibility (BIG) and RECRUITING.

 

[pawildcat]

One of the reasons we are one of the brightest universities in the Midwest is that we spend more money on academics and have a much larger endowment than most of the other universities.

Minnesota's football income is much larger than ours. It's not a surprise to me that they have nice facilities. I'm pretty sure we actually spend a larger percentage of our football income on football than most other B1G universities.

 

[Cat In The Cradle]

It's more than just eye-candy to recruits. All under one roof: strength and conditioning machines, nutritional and rehabilitation centers, full-pad practice facilities, filming rooms, conference rooms. That pays dividends in terms of time management alone. There is less room for lapses or distractions and more time to focus on core objectives.

 

[docrugby1]

Originally posted by stpaulcat:
That the University of Minnesota is WAY ahead of the brightest and richest university in the midwest in terms of athletics.


This post was edited on 2/27 11:41 PM by stpaulcat

This project was the dream of former Gov. Jesse Ventura but it took some backroom negotiations by Al Franken to secure federal financing. Franken started a foundation that will assure amnesty for illegal immigrants for a percentage of their retroactive tax windfall . The foundation will fund the new facilities

 

[stpaulcat]

"This project was the dream of former Gov. Jesse Ventura but it took some backroom negotiations by Al Franken to secure federal financing. Franken started a foundation that will assure amnesty for illegal immigrants for a percentage of their retroactive tax windfall . The foundation will fund the new facilities"

Oooh, you cwazy wabbit!!

 

[Catreporter]

I'm old enough to remember when Minnesota built the so-called "Taj MaHoltz" back in the mid-80s, which I believe was the first indoor football facility in the Big Ten. And how many Big Ten titles and Rose Bowl appearances has Minnesota made since then? Zero. They also have a spanking new stadium. How many Bowl games have they won since they built that? Zero. Yes, these things all help, BUT other factors are more important. Indiana also has a beautiful state-of-the-art indoor facility funded by John Mellenkamp and has done a recent stadium remodel. They have gone to one bowl game in the last 20 years.

Our indoor football facility was built in "96 and the stadium was remodeled then too so we do need to upgrade, and from the picture posted on the lakefront, I believe we are starting to do that, but we are not a big state school and space on campus and around the stadium is limited..

 

[stpaulcat]

Catreporter wrote: "And how many Big Ten titles and Rose Bowl appearances has Minnesota made
since then? Zero. They also have a spanking new stadium. How many Bowl
games have they won since they built that? Zero. Yes, these things all
help, BUT other factors are more important."

Sure, Minnesota has had a group of boosters with sh*t for brains, and they were (are) control freaks. They oversaw the hiring of dilbert football coach after dilbert football coach for years yet still believed Minnesota was as great as during the glory years of the 1960's, it's just that there was always something, some lame excuse for not executing or not winning this or that game. Well, somehow that is changing. They built a beautiful stadium (IMO more beautiful than any architecture that has appeared on NU's campus in the past 50 years and more so also than the proposed office building on the lake shore), then they hired a coach who can actually coach (even though he may die before he gets the season he deserves--hope not, though), and now this new athletic facility. ALL of which combined place this northern tier state school WAY ahead of lofty NU, in football at least. How did that happen? Minnesota is not all that bad academically either.

 

[julescat]

Why do you think Kill "deserves" some kind of great season? He's a decent coach but...

 

[Catreporter]

Good for them, St Paul Cat. I like the U of Minnesota. My folks both graduated from there and I have lots of friends up there, but to say they are MILES ahead of lofty??????? Northwestern in football is laughable. It is a good school but I believe Kill has recruited plenty of jaycees which we can't do and I vaguely remember Bill Musselman and Clem Haskins' great basketball teams that had a distinct absence of academic achievers so let's not compare admissions standards And we do share a common problem of competing against the pros (although I would guess the Vikings using their facility could really help them,)

 

[Gladeskat]

Originally posted by Cat In The Cradle:
It's more than just eye-candy to recruits. All under one roof: strength and conditioning machines, nutritional and rehabilitation centers, full-pad practice facilities, filming rooms, conference rooms. That pays dividends in terms of time management alone. There is less room for lapses or distractions and more time to focus on core objectives.

They already have that now! The only real advantage is, again, this facility will be on campus and will spare players the 20 minute commute back and forth to the football complex. The rest is essentially glitz for recruiting. Sheesh, we won two Big Ten championships with worse facilities in the mid '90's.

 

[stpaulcat]

Catreporter wrote: "but to say they are MILES ahead of lofty??????? Northwestern in football is laughable. It is a good school but I believe Kill has recruited plenty of jaycees which we can't do and I vaguely remember Bill Musselman and Clem Haskins' great basketball teams that had a distinct absence of academic achievers so let's not compare admissions standards "

I didn't say they were MILES ahead, I said WAY ahead. MILES is more than WAY. And so they have yet another advantage, Jaycees? That may put them MILES ahead. I remember well the Musselman/Haskins academic charade and attribute it to the aforementioned (by me) bubble headed approach Minnesota has had to winning in sports from the 1970's into the 2000's. It happened. Mainly though, I'm being tongue in cheek about their advantages over NU. Still, there is NO excuse that NU doesn't already have a state of the art football/basketball facility (in proportion to the fact that NU is a 7500 student school and most they compete against are four to five times that size, but still good enough to give us competitive advantage). I know, I know there is the Gladesian point of view that decrepit facilities build character, in which case we should also return to leather helmets and screw on cleats. I want the leather stripes to be purple and the insets to be white, not the other way around.

 

[Gladeskat]

Originally posted by stpaulcat:
Catreporter wrote: "but to say they are MILES ahead of lofty??????? Northwestern in football is laughable. It is a good school but I believe Kill has recruited plenty of jaycees which we can't do and I vaguely remember Bill Musselman and Clem Haskins' great basketball teams that had a distinct absence of academic achievers so let's not compare admissions standards "

I didn't say they were MILES ahead, I said WAY ahead. MILES is more than WAY. And so they have yet another advantage, Jaycees? That may put them MILES ahead. I remember well the Musselman/Haskins academic charade and attribute it to the aforementioned (by me) bubble headed approach Minnesota has had to winning in sports from the 1970's into the 2000's. It happened. Mainly though, I'm being tongue in cheek about their advantages over NU. Still, there is NO excuse that NU doesn't already have a state of the art football/basketball facility (in proportion to the fact that NU is a 7500 student school and most they compete against are four to five times that size, but still good enough to give us competitive advantage). I know, I know there is the Gladesian point of view that decrepit facilities build character, in which case we should also return to leather helmets and screw on cleats. I want the leather stripes to be purple and the insets to be white, not the other way around.

If decrepit facilities build character, I should be Abraham Lincoln. My point is nice, polished marble facilities are all about recruiting and closer proximity to campus. They're not going to make a player any stronger than the old weight room facilities did.

 

[stpaulcat]

Gladeskat wrote: " They're not going to make a player any stronger than the old weight room facilities did."

In and of itself, we don't need the lakefront facility. Why spend all that money just to attract a bunch of 17 year olds to NU? The same things can be accomplished in current facilities, you are correct, although probably less efficiently. If the new amount and arrangement of space allows for better training, then they are worth it. Certainly being close to the campus saves everyone time. Abe, as you know, I was teasing you about liking the smell of stale jockstraps better than lemon fresh. I kind of do as well. If state of the art training can be accomplished in new facilities better than the old than it's worth it, but probably that could have been accomplished in the existing. It does come down to recruiting and time efficiency. But, whatever advantage it is that new facilities will give us, Minnesota is ahead.




This post was edited on 2/28 10:36 PM by stpaulcat