Freitas Renovation

[huskymike]

A little while ago there were articles about a proposed $90M Athletic District. Is there any update?

 

[FDNY99]

Nope...nothing will happen till there is $$ and then it is gonna depend on XL rebuild.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Watching Harvard on NESN right now. There is no reason that Freitas couldn't be renovated to be equivalent to Harvards arena for very reasonable $$$. All seats are chair back and close to ice. Looks like about 3,000 - 4000 capacity. Very nice looking

 

[zls44]

Watching Harvard on NESN right now. There is no reason that Freitas couldn't be renovated to be equivalent to Harvards arena for very reasonable $$$. All seats are chair back and close to ice. Looks like about 3,000 - 4000 capacity. Very nice looking

No money is a reason

 

[FDNY99]

Watching Harvard on NESN right now. There is no reason that Freitas couldn't be renovated to be equivalent to Harvards arena for very reasonable $$$. All seats are chair back and close to ice. Looks like about 3,000 - 4000 capacity. Very nice looking

I'd say capacity around 4500 which is what has been mentioned by the athletic dept in the press.

 

[mac2351]

They have to keep pumping millions into football, chasing the P5 ghost. Good luck with that.

 

[dbmill]

They have to keep pumping millions into football, chasing the P5 ghost. Good luck with that.

Not to mention that the athletic department still in the middle of raising funds for the new soccer and baseball facilities.

 

[mac2351]

At this point, I'm just completely against all the money spent on the football program.

 

[coachcap]

At this point, I'm just completely against all the money spent on the football program.

Grinch. As an alumnus, son of an alumnus, father of 3 alumni, football season ticket holder for 15+ seasons, fan of ALL sports UCONN, hear's a big you! Happy New Year!

 

[FDNY99]

At this point, I'm just completely against all the money spent on the football program.

@mac2351 really? I'm a 13 year consecutive season football ticket holder..19 over all. I have had season hockey tickets since HE upgrade. The fact of the matter is this...Edsall's contract was EXTREMELY fiscally responsible...Diaco's contract was bought ope by donor money specifically ear marked for such a purpose. Things will work themselves out for hockey. Truth is that unless one of us hits the jackpot lotto the Freitas upgrade/replacement issue is behind the facility upgrades because of having a place to play in the XL Center. IMHO if it wasn't for football, hockey would still be a back burner sport getting minimum support like they did before the upgrade.

 

[dbmill]

@mac2351 really? I'm a 13 year consecutive season football ticket holder..19 over all. I have had season hockey tickets since HE upgrade. The fact of the matter is this...Edsall's contract was EXTREMELY fiscally responsible...Diaco's contract was bought ope by donor money specifically ear marked for such a purpose. Things will work themselves out for hockey. Truth is that unless one of us hits the jackpot lotto the Freitas upgrade/replacement issue is behind the facility upgrades because of having a place to play in the XL Center. IMHO if it wasn't for football, hockey would still be a back burner sport getting minimum support like they did before the upgrade.

UConn facility fundraising capabilities have never been a thing where no more than one or two big projects can take place at any one time. Gampel was a long time in coming to fruition in the 1980's, as were the basketball practice facilities and the football facilities later on. Field hockey got lucky in getting its facility completed in the mid 1990's. It's proving to be the same long wait with both soccer and baseball. I expect that eventually something will be done with the on campus ice hockey facility, but the other projects going on need to be completed before ice hockey can become the focus of UConn sports facility efforts. Most fans don't have the patience to wait. God knows, I've been waiting for the soccer and baseball facilities to be acted on for some time now.

 

[FDNY99]

UConn facility fundraising capabilities have never been a thing where no more than one or two big projects can take place at any one time. Gampel was a long time in coming to fruition in the 1980's, as were the basketball practice facilities and the football facilities later on. Field hockey got lucky in getting its facility completed in the mid 1990's. It's proving to be the same long wait with both soccer and baseball. I expect that eventually something will be done with the on campus ice hockey facility, but the other projects going on need to be completed before ice hockey can become the focus of UConn sports facility efforts. Most fans don't have the patience to wait. God knows, I've been waiting for the soccer and baseball facilities to be acted on for some time now.

100% of what I was trying to get at. The BOT has approved to a ticket surcharge to help fund facility upgrades...now people just have too buy tickets so they can see revenue flow and start to release $$ so they can start.

 

[dbmill]

100% of what I was trying to get at. The BOT has approved to a ticket surcharge to help fund facility upgrades...now people just have too buy tickets so they can see revenue flow and start to release $$ so they can start.

Along with buying tickets, it is also important for people to donate to the various athletic facility funds that have been set up.

One other thing that crossed my mind is the glacial pace at which improvements are made to UConn's athletic facilities. One example that comes to mind is with soccer. Soccer has been a huge thing at UConn since the 1970's and the days of Joe Morrone. Despite this importance to UConn sports since that time, it took until either 1999 0r 2000 for Morrone Stadium to become equipped with lights, which finally enabled soccer matches to be played at night.

 

[husky8273]

Along with buying tickets, it is also important for people to donate to the various athletic facility funds that have been set up.

One other thing that crossed my mind is the glacial pace at which improvements are made to UConn's athletic facilities. One example that comes to mind is with soccer. Soccer has been a huge thing at UConn since the 1970's and the days of Joe Morrone. Despite this importance to UConn sports since that time, it took until either 1999 0r 2000 for Morrone Stadium to become equipped with lights, which finally enabled soccer matches to be played at night.

as Ray Reid said at an event over a year ago, "little did I know when Lew Perkins told me after the 2000 championship that we would get a new soccer stadium that it would take 15 years and that I would have to raise all the money".

 

[FDNY99]

as Ray Reid said at an event over a year ago, "little did I know when Lew Perkins told me after the 2000 championship that we would get a new soccer stadium that it would take 15 years and that I would have to raise all the money".

There is the key right there...that man was really good at raising money and getting things done. His replacement sucked at everything...set the athletic department back to post John Toner in most things. Warde to me was ok at fundraising...he got that hoops facility done in 18 months. But now we will see what Benedict can do. I noticed in the Q&A session after Edsall's introductory press conference that he said he speaks to Lew Perkins regularly...that to me is a good sign of things to come in this arena. You can't undo the past over night..it may take a little bit.

 

[dbmill]

as Ray Reid said at an event over a year ago, "little did I know when Lew Perkins told me after the 2000 championship that we would get a new soccer stadium that it would take 15 years and that I would have to raise all the money".

There is the key right there...that man was really good at raising money and getting things done. His replacement sucked at everything...set the athletic department back to post John Toner in most things. Warde to me was ok at fundraising...he got that hoops facility done in 18 months. But now we will see what Benedict can do. I noticed in the Q&A session after Edsall's introductory press conference that he said he speaks to Lew Perkins regularly...that to me is a good sign of things to come in this arena. You can't undo the past over night..it may take a little bit.

Jim Penders became UConn's baseball coach in 2003 when there was also the promise of a new baseball facility in the air. At various functions the last couple of years Penders has said similar things to the Ray Reid quote here relating to the long awaited baseball facility. Of course, Penders started running the baseball team at roughly the same time that Hathaway became athletic director, so that had to be a sobering experience for Penders.

 

[FDNY99]

Jim Penders became UConn's baseball coach in 2003 when there was also the promise of a new baseball facility in the air. At various functions the last couple of years Penders has said similar things to the Ray Reid quote here relating to the long awaited baseball facility. Of course, Penders started running the baseball team at roughly the same time that Hathaway became athletic director, so that had to be a sobering experience for Penders.

When I think back to Hathaway's reign as AD it makes me want to smash my laptop. When people on here talk about CR blame..to me it stops directly at him. Any facility upgrades that occurred under him were started by Perkins. He raised ZERO $$ during his term and right now Benedict is pissing in the wind on that front. If by hiring Edsall it gets people back to Rentschler and enables him to put that surcharge on tickets to start doing the projects then charge away. The guy Penders replaced also holds some piece of the baseball facility issue right now. He never wanted to rock the boat...while down the road a coach of a D-3 program made sure that he had a facility worthy of a D-1 program built for his team. In reality the facilities that ECSU has for baseball and softball blow what UConn has out of the water!

 

[FfldCntyFan]

When I think about what my walked into and what an AD who was an achiever could have accomplished, I'm tempted to take a baseball bat to JH's head.

An achiever would have seen the flecking football program filling a brand new, 40k seat stadium and said to himself "in a dozen years we can fill a 60k seat stadium if we do things right" and then solicited the football coach (Edsall) to discuss how to take the program to a higher level.

He would have seen what was going on in men's & women's hoops and said "from here, we can cement both programs as perennial powers, then solicited JC and Geno to determine what he could do to assist this (raising funds for a practice facility would have been the answer).

Instead he did little beyond sticking his thumb up his backside, piss off a lot of quality people and worry about his bonus.

 

[huskypantz]

Honestly, it's not totally Hathaway's fault. His skills were around managing budgets. He was not a visionary, not a long term planner. He just wanted to save pennies. The fault lies in the people who put him in charge of the AD. He just did the things that he was good at and he was unfortunately oblivious to anything other than a short-term bottom line. Unfortunately, he somehow escaped judgment while we were winning national championships as people wrongly equated some part of that success with him. I would guess that the first thing Rachel Rubin did once she had Herbst's ear was to start the discussion on his removal, and thank god for that.

 

[FDNY99]

Honestly, it's not totally Hathaway's fault. His skills were around managing budgets. He was not a visionary, not a long term planner. He just wanted to save pennies. The fault lies in the people who put him in charge of the AD. He just did the things that he was good at and he was unfortunately oblivious to anything other than a short-term bottom line. Unfortunately, he somehow escaped judgment while we were winning national championships as people wrongly equated some part of that success with him. I would guess that the first thing Rachel Rubin did once she had Herbst's ear was to start the discussion on his removal, and thank god for that.

He should have been fired on the spot with that whole ticket scandal he was directly involved with that involved Morande Ford.

 

[gtcam]

He should have been fired on the spot with that whole ticket scandal he was directly involved with that involved Morande Ford.

My my wasn't that shoved under the mat

 

[FDNY99]

My my wasn't that shoved under the mat

It had to be the reason for Larry McHugh turning to him at the BOT meeting after he had made a motion that was seconded and approved to not give hathaway his bonus which brought out a HUGE temper tantrum on his part and saying "and if the NCAA investigation unveils a Lack of Institutional Control charge against the University I will see to it you are terminated on the spot"...or something along those lines.

 

[husky8273]

My my wasn't that shoved under the mat

Monaco Ford

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

It had to be the reason for Larry McHugh ...

Talk about visionaries ...

 

[freescooter]

Unfortunately Hathaway was a cost accountant and he was replaced by a dolt who was hired to "fix" the basketball APR. We finally have an AD wh has a bit of vision I think. I hope ADDave stays a while.