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XL - Uconn Contract Talks

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My sociology teacher was represented on the BOT. He said that if Rent didn't become available at the price for it did then they would have pulled eminent domain and we'd have an on campus field.
There was no need for eminent domain. The university owned the land and is exempt from local zoning regulations.
 

CL82

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I believe the original plan was to build the stadium on-campus behind North Campus where the tech park is now going. Mansfield raised holy heck over the idea. Then the now infamous attend to build a 70K indoor stadium in Hartford for the Pats and UConn where the convention center is today that was a 'done' deal until we realized a signed contract with Mr. Kraft was worth less than paper it was written on because he used the 'done deal' to arrange for a sweeter deal for him to build Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. That was then followed by UTC donating the old airfield in East Hartford, which happended to be a very contaminated site, to the state for UConn field and that became Rentschler Field.
I remember it differently. It was the cost that killed it. We ended up building Burton and Shenkman from private money. I think if we had pitched just the stadium to the state, with a modest plan but an ability to upgrade, it would have happened.
 
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I remember it differently. It was the cost that killed it. We ended up building Burton and Shenkman from private money. I think if we had pitched just the stadium to the state, with a modest plan but an ability to upgrade, it would have happened.


Thanks for the excuse to do some historical digging on the up and downs of the UConn football stadium. Yes, cost appears to have been the primary factor. It was cost that eventually killed the on-campus proposal in 1997, pushed UConn to see the NE Patriot’s as a potential partners in a downtown Hartford Stadium in 1999 and then led UConn to beg UTC for free land to cut the costs below $100 million for the stadium that was built, the Rent.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/19/nyregion/uconn-sees-support-faltering-for-a-new-football-stadium.html

That said, Mansfield itself seem to be split. The problem was, and this is always the case in small town, there was a very loud, small group that opposed it and they did everything in their power to do so. In this case, the group called themselves ‘Mansfield Common Sense.’ The eventually managed to latch onto the cost issue and swung local politicians in their favor at the state level, which did kill the idea.

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-06/news/9711060408_1_council-members-town-opposing

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-12/news/9711120545_1_football-stadium-upcoming-forum-stadium-s-planners

It’s worthwhile noting that this the same group that also opposed the Pfizer facility and more recently the Tech Park to be built to the north of campus, which exactly where the football stadium was supposed to go.

Lastly, this last clip I found was interesting. I did not remember that 3 sites around campus were considered. The first, building a new stadium where Memorial stadium was never went far due to the available footprint. Another near-campus site at the intersection of I-84 and Rte 195 in Tolland could not work due to environmental issues, i.e. wetlands. Thus, the two primary choices was the Mansfield Training School grounds and where the tech park is today. I thought it was interesting that the $100 million include football practice facilities and a stadium built to 35K with expansion to 50K built in. A traffic study even indicated that with direct access to US 44, local roads could have handled game day traffics for a 35K to 50K stadium. What a wasted opportunity.
 
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Thanks for the excuse to do some historical digging on the up and downs of the UConn football stadium. Yes, cost appears to have been the primary factor. It was cost that eventually killed the on-campus proposal in 1997, pushed UConn to see the NE Patriot’s as a potential partners in a downtown Hartford Stadium in 1999 and then led UConn to beg UTC for free land to cut the costs below $100 million for the stadium that was built, the Rent.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/19/nyregion/uconn-sees-support-faltering-for-a-new-football-stadium.html

That said, Mansfield itself seem to be split. The problem was, and this is always the case in small town, there was a very loud, small group that opposed it and they did everything in their power to do so. In this case, the group called themselves ‘Mansfield Common Sense.’ The eventually managed to latch onto the cost issue and swung local politicians in their favor at the state level, which did kill the idea.

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-06/news/9711060408_1_council-members-town-opposing

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-12/news/9711120545_1_football-stadium-upcoming-forum-stadium-s-planners

It’s worthwhile noting that this the same group that also opposed the Pfizer facility and more recently the Tech Park to be built to the north of campus, which exactly where the football stadium was supposed to go.

Lastly, this last clip I found was interesting. I did not remember that 3 sites around campus were considered. The first, building a new stadium where Memorial stadium was never went far due to the available footprint. Another near-campus site at the intersection of I-84 and Rte 195 in Tolland could not work due to environmental issues, i.e. wetlands. Thus, the two primary choices was the Mansfield Training School grounds and where the tech park is today. I thought it was interesting that the $100 million include football practice facilities and a stadium built to 35K with expansion to 50K built in. A traffic study even indicated that with direct access to US 44, local roads could have handled game day traffics for a 35K to 50K stadium. What a wasted opportunity.


Ps - Mansfield Common Sense even threw themselves a party when the football stadium proposal was defeated. I need to find out of Jeff Hathaway or Mark Emmert were founding members…

http://articles.courant.com/1997-12...-issue-stadium-project-mansfield-common-sense
 

CL82

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Thanks for the excuse to do some historical digging on the up and downs of the UConn football stadium. Yes, cost appears to have been the primary factor. It was cost that eventually killed the on-campus proposal in 1997, pushed UConn to see the NE Patriot’s as a potential partners in a downtown Hartford Stadium in 1999 and then led UConn to beg UTC for free land to cut the costs below $100 million for the stadium that was built, the Rent.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/19/nyregion/uconn-sees-support-faltering-for-a-new-football-stadium.html

That said, Mansfield itself seem to be split. The problem was, and this is always the case in small town, there was a very loud, small group that opposed it and they did everything in their power to do so. In this case, the group called themselves ‘Mansfield Common Sense.’ The eventually managed to latch onto the cost issue and swung local politicians in their favor at the state level, which did kill the idea.

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-06/news/9711060408_1_council-members-town-opposing

http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-12/news/9711120545_1_football-stadium-upcoming-forum-stadium-s-planners

It’s worthwhile noting that this the same group that also opposed the Pfizer facility and more recently the Tech Park to be built to the north of campus, which exactly where the football stadium was supposed to go.

Lastly, this last clip I found was interesting. I did not remember that 3 sites around campus were considered. The first, building a new stadium where Memorial stadium was never went far due to the available footprint. Another near-campus site at the intersection of I-84 and Rte 195 in Tolland could not work due to environmental issues, i.e. wetlands. Thus, the two primary choices was the Mansfield Training School grounds and where the tech park is today. I thought it was interesting that the $100 million include football practice facilities and a stadium built to 35K with expansion to 50K built in. A traffic study even indicated that with direct access to US 44, local roads could have handled game day traffics for a 35K to 50K stadium. What a wasted opportunity.
Interesting. Thanks for doing all the leg work on it.

"I can only say I'm uncommitted at this time, and plan to remain so until the very end,'' Merrill said in a telephone interview Wednesday night. ``But it's true that I need to be able to negotiate. By simply opposing the stadium, I wouldn't be in a position to accomplish anything.''

More than three dozen speakers at Wednesday's meeting seemed to back Merrill's view. There was a clear divergence of opinions, with some urging the council to stick to its guns, and others saying the town should avoid an adversarial position that might undermine its bargaining power.
 
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Ps - Mansfield Common Sense even threw themselves a party when the football stadium proposal was defeated. I need to find out of Jeff Hathaway or Mark Emmert were founding members…

http://articles.courant.com/1997-12-06/news/9712060335_1_stadium-issue-stadium-project-mansfield-common-sense


PPS – Found a transcript of a Mansfield town meeting on the on-campus football stadium proposal in the pre-UConn days. There is a lot of good stuff in here. One surprising discussion was lead by Provots Emmert. Yes, that Mark Emmert. While his comments showed his vanity (I attended a black tie affair, I went to the NBA all-star game, I met with the chancellor of Stanford, Duke, etc.), his general point was spot on that athletics are tied to academics. He even mentioned UConn interest in getting into the AAU and that UConn should be aiming to be a Michigan, UNC, etc.

“MARK EMMERT: Representative Schiessl, Senator Looney, thank you for providing me an opportunity to speak before this body. I'm Mark Emmert and I am the Chancellor of the University which means, among other things, I'm the chief academic officer at UCONN. In many ways, that makes me an unlikely advocate, frankly, for 1A football given the assumed antipathy between athletics and academics. There is a curious assumption that building one always comes at the cost of the other and vice versa. And I happen to be one of those people that completely believes the opposite is true. And rather than be redundant and repeat many of the comments you've heard already, I want to make two simple points with two simple anecdotes. Last night I was at a black tie gala in Manhattan that attracted a large crowd, about 1,200 people, beautiful and important people. I was there for contrast.

REP. SCHIESSL: I doubt that, Mr. Emmert. I'm sure you were mixing in just fine.

MARK EMMERT: And it was an event to celebrate the best NBA performances of 1997. Now had that been the National Basketball Association and had the UCONN representative been Ray Allen, you would all know about it already because you would have read about it in The Courant this morning. But the fact was it was a National Book Awards which along with the Pulitzer Prize are the two most important awards that any American writer can receive. And last night a wonderful, wonderful poet named Marilyn Nelson was recognized as one of the 20 greatest writers in America. Now Marilyn Nelson is a professor at the University of Connecticut and I dare say that this is the first time you've heard of this fact. I suspect it's not in The Courant today. I apologize for The Courant reporters. I haven't read the paper this morning, but I suspect it's not in any paper in Connecticut except maybe The New York Times, Connecticut edition. The reality is that in the United States for any number of reasons, we tend to pay much more attention to athletic performance than scientific and artistic performance. I don't happen to like that, by the way. It just happens to be a fact. And if we want to tell a story of the University of Connecticut, if we want to generate excitement, enthusiasm, and draw attention to all the things we're doing as an academic institution, one, not the only, and I believe not even the most important, but one of the very important vehicles for doing that is to utilize our success in academic programs. As President Austin said, "our athletic programs are ancillary to our academic programs". They allow us to bring attention, excitement, build community. They don't build academic programs. But they surely do not come with the cost of academic programs, quite the contrary. They help us tell that story. The second point I want to make is one that we all learned as kids and that is that you're known by the company that you keep. I was chatting last week with a very dear friend of mine who is the Chief Academic Officer of Arizona State University and I was talking to him of all things about football and I was chatting about what we're trying to do at the University of Connecticut and he laughed and he said, "Mark, I have to tell you something. The single most important thing that's happened in the history of Arizona State University is that Pack 10 let us in. Because when that happened, that day, you could talk about Arizona State University and Stanford University in the same sentence without laughing." And you can talk about the University of Arizona that costs state rivals of extraordinary magnitude. Without comparing them other than to say they are peers. It is critically important that people recognize when you say this institution is a Big Ten institution, you are not just talking about athletics. To be a Big Ten institution means every bit as much academically as it does athletically. They just happen to play football against each other. When you say you're in the ACC it means you play with Duke. That's important for those schools. When you play in the Pack Ten, that means you're a peer with Berkeley, with Stanford, with UCLA. The University of Connecticut needs that device. We need that tool. A 1A football program can, in fact, provide that opportunity for us. The most exclusive club in American higher education is the Association of American Universities, the AAU. We are not a member of the AAU. We would like to be a member of the AAU. It's a 64 most prestigious academic institutions in the country. Of those, half are public universities. All but two play 1A football. The two that don't, don't because of very peculiar circumstances that we could talk about. But it is almost a certainty that you cannot move into the AAU and be recognized as an institution at that level unless you are at the top of your game and everything you do including athletics. Again, whether I like that or not is sort of irrelevant. It just happens to be the realities of American culture. It is very important to me as a University Chief Academic Officer that we be able to compare ourselves to peers that we're most proud of on a national level and we have mechanisms for telling our story to reaching the public of Connecticut and beyond to generate an excitement and enthusiasm for the University. That's why I'm supportive of 1A football.”
 

UConn Dan

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That's probably the only intelligent thing ever to come out of emmerts mouth
 
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They are still forcing the flagship University to play Football and Basketball games in the state capital that is 35 minutes from campus. We scratch your back with $$, you scratch ours. Forcing a location change for 50% of your games is not commonplace in college athletics. I don't understand how this doesn't piss more people off. As a student it had me beside myself and I got the chance to speak to Warde about it. It's clear that most of the administration wishes things were different- even Kevin Ollie requested more games in Storrs last year.

There is no culture in Hartford in regards to UCONN. Storrs is UCONN's home and it should stay that way. You don't see Purdue alumni (West Lafayette is remote) forcing Purdue to play games in Indianapolis because it's easier to get to by highway and the state government is there.

Decades of bad decision making put us in this predicament. Ranging from highway expansion, bad stadium planning with the town, and the delayed development of Storrs. The one plus is that the Hockey East has forced their hand and I cannot wait for the new arena.

There is absolutely no point in a new XL Center unless the NHL comes calling. The NBA has no interest and a minor-league team will not provide the income.

I promise when you're an alum making good money living west of Hartford you'll feel different. I promise.
 

CL82

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I promise when you're an alum making good money living west of Hartford you'll feel different. I promise.
Possibly, but then there will be another generation of students wishing they had more home games.
 
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