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Facilities

Blofeld

Blofeld

Active member
That was a good read but not easy, that board is a mess to navigate.

I understand the smugness, it's the same feeling people here have about losing to Chadron State. However, I find it ironic because a lot of the same issues that effect UNC effect them as well. They really can't ever expect to compete in the MWC with the smallest budget and also in basketball their facility, Moby Arena, is light years behind what all the other schools in the MWC have. BYU, Utah, New Mexico, UNLV, and SDSU play in arenas over 15K with SDSU's being brand new. Clune at Air Force is the only one smaller than CSU, even Wyoming seats 12K... So like UNC, CSU needs a new arena to compete. At least with UNC we don't have the worst facility in the conference, Sac and PSU are worse. However, Butler is a mediocre D-II facilty and if we're still there in 10 years that will be a real problem... for now, yeah, we can get by but the balls needs to start rolling on a new 6K arena immediatly so we have something done in 5 to 7 years.
 
Realisticaly a new arena is a pipe dream.

UNC tried to get together with the city to build an arena on the Bishop-Leher site. They got as far as a feesablity study, and then the city council decided to kill the plans. The study found that the arena would not be profitable or necessary because of the close proxamity of the Bud center. It also found that it would have a $100k operating decifit.

The university and the city should have done this several years ago before the Bud center got off the ground, then we would have the events center rather than larimer county.

The only way now to get a new facility is to raise private/corperate dollars. As I seriously doubt the students would approve another fee increase, and there is no way the state is ever going to pony up the money.

Perhaps in 5-10 years if the B-Ball program sees tremendous sucess, there might be enough excitement and willingness on the part of donors to get behind a new facility.

In the meantime, there are other things that I for one would like to see addressed first. First Nottingham should get lights, and a new scoreboard, and second they should buy a second digital board for BH, to go on the other wall. Also upgraded weght and locker room facilities would help a lot in recruitment for all sports.

IF by some miricle we did get a new arena, that would be fantastic, because then BH could become a volleyball only facility, and a backup in case the women and men have a schedule confict.
 
Yeah I know the logistics are complicated but ultimatly it is of course a money issue but bottom line Butler is not a decent facilty at all. If UNC can build up a strong program they might be forced to play the bigger games at the Bud Center.

There really is no reason a city the size of Greeley shouldn't have a medium sized civic arena but that's neither here nor there at this point.

Looking 20 years down the road though can they really continue to play in Butler? The place will be 50 years old by then and never was that great to begin with.
 
I wonder if there is room to do what they do at South Dakota State (behind the nets). Just wrap the seats around a bit:

AGAUCWMIAYOMHBL.20070615191135.jpg



From the outside, the arena doesn't look much different than ours.
 
Our seats used to go higher up the walls, like you see at SDSU, but for reasons I dont fully understand, they placed the pull out sections lower on the walls, which is what reduced the capacity...

Going from having seating on 2 sides to seating on 4 sides in my mind should increase capacity, but alas.

I think the biggest problem is the indoor track, without that, we have a ton of space to work with, and could build something much more than pull out bleachers. The only other basic deficency at BH is the low roof which prevents a hanging center scoreboard.

Look at the pics and you will see what I am talking about:
160711.jpeg

See how the bleachers go all the way up to the catwalk at the top.

Now look at the link below:
http://uncbears.cstv.com/view.gal?id=1740&template=player_gallery

You can see that the bleachers do not go up as high on the walls.
 
We went from a glorified high school gym with ugly bleachers to chairbacks, while, yes, giving up seats. Anytime you make a change from bleachers to chairbacks, it does cut down on the available seating, because of the space differences.

I don't think the chairback setups could reach as high, because of the width needed between the rows, so we lost mostly the upper "tier" of seats.

Its not like we've been filling the place up either way, but, for some reason, college basketball runs second fiddle to the NBA along the front range. As a "college" guy, that frustrates me, because I'd rather watch that game rather than the glorified 1-on-1 game that passes for the NBA.
 
Related question for you. Besides not going up as high the seats are also a long way from the floor. The color variations of the floor make it look odd. Any idea why they didn't pull the seats closer to the floor?
 
While watching the game on Altitude, I noticed the large gap between the sidelines and the first row of seats (people were using it to wander around to their seats). I would rather watch a 3 day test match (cricket) than the NBA.
 
The design of the gym means that from the floor is the only access to the seats. IMO, the gap is probably there because of safety concerns and to allow traffic to move easily.
 
Brian said:
I wonder if there is room to do what they do at South Dakota State (behind the nets). Just wrap the seats around a bit:

AGAUCWMIAYOMHBL.20070615191135.jpg



From the outside, the arena doesn't look much different than ours.
Click to expand...

That upper balcony type area there in the corner is actually the indoor running track which isn't on the floor like ours but raised up. So theoretically if they raised the track up and wrapped it all the way around like that we could have corner seating also... It might be more trouble than it's worth but it's possible.

I know the current seats are retractable but do they ever pull them back? Do they still use the space for indoor track? From what I've seen all the indoor meets they participate in are at other locations.

If you didn't care about the track you could build a balcony type seated area on both sides (similar to how Gunter was before the balcony was removed) and permanent seats below with the wrap around added it would almost be a decent, legit, facility and you'd probably be able to get up to a capacity of around 4K. It would be costly but still only a fraction of the cost of a new facilty.
 
That indoor track needs to be forgotten about. It is way too small and the corners are way too tight and they are not banked. I can't believe the track coach or team wants anything to do with that thing so I say scrap it and make the seating better.

When I first saw that picture of the SDSU arena I thought it was ours post renovation--I was impressed. Oh well, we still beat CSU.
 
Scrap the PE classes too then... I mean there are 6 full sized courts in the Rec Center so no need to use Butler when it can be remodled into something much better than it is now.
 
The only time the bleachers are out is when there is an event, the gym is used not only for pe classes but mens/womens practice when the bleachers are in they have 6 baskets to work with, as well as when the snow comes track, softball, and baseball all end up in the gym for practice, also i think football has done some of their morning conditioning in the gym. There is the new practice gym but i think one team still ends up in the gym.
 
Allright, here is my master plan:
1. Remove track from Nottingham, dig the stadium down and expand seating to put it right on the field (think Montana).
2. Athletic building in Nottingham for lockerrooms, coaches offices and state of the art weight training and training facilities.
3. Tear down Bishop Lehr and build a new arena. Beside the arena add an indoor practicy facility and a new track attached.
4. Convert BH to a wrestling and VB venue.
Now if someone could just send in a check for a $100 million or so I'll take your check and my napkin over to Jay and get it all worked out. :wink: :wink:
 
I agree with all that. I really thought a track should have been built around Jackson Field so that Nottinghams could be removed at some point but, hey, nobody asked me...

Beyond that we really need some sort of locker room facilities at Nottingham, walking across the parking lot like that is really bush league.

Yes, I know it costs money but you'd even think we could put up some sort of cheap, temporary, alternative. Just even a cinderblock and steel type of structure to get us through the next few years.
 
There have been various grad plans over the years, I have actually seen drawings for a replacement facilty for Butler Hancock.

I think it would have made more sense to leave the track at jackson and build nottingham as a football only facility, but I think when UNC left Jackson, they did not have any plans to come back. I know at one point they considered selling the land.

Here is what I feel is a resonable plan for future facilites upgrades, and the order in which they should be (I kinda mentioned this earlier)

1. Lights at Nottingham
2. New/highly upgraded weight training facility
3. Upgraded Locker rooms at BH? (Does anyone know what kind of shape they are in?)
4. New scoreboard at Nottingham and and addtional message board at BH
5. Nottingham north endzone complex with locker rooms and coaches offices, and possiable training facilty.
6. Removal of track and addtional seating and upgrades to BH. Create a more permanent feel. Center scoreboard.

By reasonable, I placed some smaller ticket items first, and tried to think of what our needs would be as the programs grows.
 
Lights at Nottingham would be cool. It would be fun to have some night games there.

I also like your list. The only change I would make is to drop the upgrade of the BH locker rooms to #6 behind the new end zone complex. That way the upgrage of the BH locker room could be more sport specific. Without having to have a large football lockerroom, you could really do something nice for the other sports and give each of them (wrestling, VB, and both BB teams) their own lockerroom with the freed up space.

As for a new arena/practice facility / track at the old elementary school. I don't see why that couldn't be a money maker for the athletic department or at least a break even proposition. If they did something like DU did with the Ritchie Center it seems like it could work. Incorporate it into the community by adding a workout facility, put in a nice pool that could be used for parties, local swim teams, etc. make it so you can host conferences/trade shows in the practice facility, a nice venue for concerts, etc. Ritchie has a heck of a lot more competing facilities around it and it seems to do just fine. Ahhhh I guess I am just naive.
 
We Need a new pool bad. The one we have now, is too shallow, too narrow, not enough deck space, not enough spectator seating, has a poor diving facility, etc... And that was when I was there 10 years ago!
 
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