For my 1,000th post I thought I'd take this one outside of the box and use some imagination. I figured since it is the offseason and there is not much else to talk about, why not dream up a facilities plan (pipe dream) for Sac State. I tried to keep most things into the realm of possibility and make things seem like they could be somewhat possible. I'll start from north to south and go in no particular order whatsoever. I scoped out the facilities pages on Hornetsports to try and get a feel for what facilities the various teams need the most but the descriptions weren't too informative. This is based on nothing more than my imagination and opinion of what I think would be a reasonable way to build quality, top of the line facilities to meet the needs and demands of the athletic department, athletes, coaches and the sports that are sponsored or could possibly be sponsored by the department in the future. Please note that I scaled the images as best as I could to get a relative footprint size of what space the facilities would need. (It was done in Paint so please pardon the rough edges. Measurements were taken from Google Earth.)
Please feel free to add in your comments and ideas that you think would be a plausible idea about a facility or team. Again, I am not familiar with the Hornet athletic facilities and went off of what I could find on Hornetsports. I didn't know what to do with men's and women's golf so they can just find space in building #2. Feel free to let me know what you think about my ideas. Enjoy.
- 1. Swimming and diving facilities. With a future move to FBS in the balance, a female sport would need to be added to address the added football scholarships so I went with swimming and diving...this would of course need an Olympic size pool and diving facilities. Yosemite Hall would need to be demolished (it would probably only take one or two swings with a 10 pound sledgehammer to do so) to make room for this behemoth. I also included a "Pool House" that would provide locker rooms, coaches offices, training rooms, and storage for the swimming and diving team. I used the McDonald's Swim Stadium located on the campus of USC as a base. I could not find how many this seats but I would guess it is close to 1,000 capacity. The "Pool House" has an approximate footprint of 25' x 115'.
2. With the demolition of Yosemite Hall, there would be enough room for a new building east of the pool. This building will have the seats for the pool built into it and have an approximate footprint of 290' x 60'. This building could be multiple stories and could contain offices, classrooms, weight rooms, lecture halls or anything that could be of use to the athletic department as well as the university.
3. The portion of Yosemite Hall adjacent to Hornet Gym could be demolished (or rehabilitated depending on its condition) and have a new building built to accommodate women's volleyball and gymnastics. This building would be approximately 35' x 220' (about the current footprint) and could include locker rooms, training rooms, coaches offices, team rooms, and concessions for Hornet Gym events. Please note that the current indoor racquet ball courts located south of Hornet Gym could also be demolished and that area used for a new facility as well.
4. For the Hornet Soccer Field, I added permanent concrete seats on the east side of the existing location. I used the footprint of the Arizona State Soccer Field which has approximately 1k capacity and would bring the total capacity of Hornet Soccer Field to about 2.5k. Under the seats would be coaches offices, training rooms and home team locker rooms for both men's and women's teams. I also added a small "fieldhouse" south of the new stands with an approximate footprint of 55' x 70' to provide visitor locker rooms. Lights would be a great addition to the soccer field as well as a scoreboard.
5. Softball would get a new clubhouse that will provide locker rooms for both the Lady Hornets and the visiting team as well as coaches offices, training rooms and other team rooms. The approximate footprint is 75' x 85'. Lights would also be a welcome addition to Shea Stadium.
6. Since both men's and women's tennis teams dominate the Big Sky, I thought I'd throw them a bone and give them some new facilities as well. I used the tennis courts and seating arrangement that the Marks Tennis Stadium at USC has (close to 1k capacity) and the Whiteman Tennis Center from Arizona State (approximately 6,640 sq. ft.) which would provide locker rooms for both men's and women's teams as well as visitor locker rooms, coaches offices and training rooms. Lights would be optional for the tennis courts.
- 7. For baseball I figured that Hornet Field could use a new clubhouse that would provide locker rooms for both the Hornets and the visitors as well as coaches offices, training rooms, video rooms and other space essential for a top program. The clubhouse would have an approximate footprint of 160' x 90'. I also believe there is room behind the home plate seats for a media booth. (Not shown, too hard to clip in Paint.) Lights for Hornet Field would also be a must. The old clubhouse could be demolished to provide room for more seats, more batting cages, or concessions. There also appears to be room down the first base side for more seats/concessions, but I don't think that capacity is an issue at Hornet Field so new seats probably wouldn't be a priority.
- 8. For football I went a bit overboard. I used the footprint of Boise State's football stadium (plus some manipulation via Paint) and shifted the field south towards the Broad Fieldhouse to allow room for endzone seating on the north side of the stadium. Boise State's stadium seats approximately 33.5k which is damn near perfect for an FBS stadium. The new Hornet Stadium wouldn't have to seat that much, I would think the high 20k to low 30k capacity range would be plenty. The image shows a press booth on both sidelines however I would think there would only need to be a press booth on one side. (Although booths on both sides could serve as private rooms that could be rented out to local companies and large groups which would generate some revenue.) Given the fact that FieldTurf is currently being installed, I doubt shifting the field is a possibility, so if/when a permanent new Hornet Stadium is built, the track would most likely stay and a double deck type of seating on both sidelines would be the practical option. There is plenty of room around the grandstand area for support facilities if this is the option built. (I used some random grass and concrete filler to cover up the surrounding area outside of the stadium to make the image look somewhat viewable.)
9. For the new basketball arena I used the footprint for the new Galen Center at USC. Galen seats about 10k so I doubt the footprint for a 6-8k arena would be this large. The new arena will need to have enough locker rooms for both men's and women's basketball as well locker rooms for visiting opponents. Training rooms, team rooms and coaches offices would also be a necessity. (Again concrete filler was added around the arena to "enhance" the image.)
- 10. Building off of my new Hornet Stadium with no track option, I placed a new track facility on the far south area of the campus. Again I raided USC for their facility footprint and used USC's Loker Stadium. Loker seats about 3k and provides coaches offices, locker rooms, an athlete lounge and meeting rooms. I didn't add filler around the new track stadium as the empty lots could serve as parking for meets. There is also room on the west side of the track for additional seating.
Please feel free to add in your comments and ideas that you think would be a plausible idea about a facility or team. Again, I am not familiar with the Hornet athletic facilities and went off of what I could find on Hornetsports. I didn't know what to do with men's and women's golf so they can just find space in building #2. Feel free to let me know what you think about my ideas. Enjoy.
