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New Arena

I don't want to start yet another thread that mainy deals with facilities, so let's use this one.

Obviously, things won't be the same in the South Park Blocks the next seasons. With Glanville and the championship (yay!), there will be a lot more attention to PSU Athletics both locally and nationally.

Immediate issues:

How can we accomodate fans until we have something decent? Even if there will be a new arena/expansion of the Stott, it will take years to complete. How will we deal with more than 1,500 people wanting to see the game?

How can the program capitalize on the sudden interest financially? Bigger corporate sponsors? Private donors? More/better focus on merchandise? A PSU store near the Ducks and Beavers stores (okay, this is going a bit far...)?

What is our main target audience? PSU has been investing heaviliy in on-campus housing, which is a good thing as it gets us away from the commuter thing. But what else? Old people seem to like our sports. Families not so much (because of the drinking? Or the missing kids tickets?).

I don't subscribe to the recurrent argument that PSU as an urban institution has a much larger community and should therefore have it easier to fill a place. Portland offers so much good culture/entertainment that people often seem to have better things to do than going to games more often than occasionally. If I lived in Corvallis I'd probably go to marathon-chess tourneys just to have something to do at all.

Looking forward to your input...
 
PortlandStater said:
I don't want to start yet another thread that mainy deals with facilities, so let's use this one.

Obviously, things won't be the same in the South Park Blocks the next seasons. With Glanville and the championship (yay!), there will be a lot more attention to PSU Athletics both locally and nationally.

Immediate issues:

How can we accomodate fans until we have something decent? Even if there will be a new arena/expansion of the Stott, it will take years to complete. How will we deal with more than 1,500 people wanting to see the game?

How can the program capitalize on the sudden interest financially? Bigger corporate sponsors? Private donors? More/better focus on merchandise? A PSU store near the Ducks and Beavers stores (okay, this is going a bit far...)?

What is our main target audience? PSU has been investing heaviliy in on-campus housing, which is a good thing as it gets us away from the commuter thing. But what else? Old people seem to like our sports. Families not so much (because of the drinking? Or the missing kids tickets?).

I don't subscribe to the recurrent argument that PSU as an urban institution has a much larger community and should therefore have it easier to fill a place. Portland offers so much good culture/entertainment that people often seem to have better things to do than going to games more often than occasionally. If I lived in Corvallis I'd probably go to marathon-chess tourneys just to have something to do at all.

Looking forward to your input...
Click to expand...

Here is my take....

PSU more often than not gets snubbed on the allocation of funds by the State of Oregon. UO/OSU get the bulk of the available funds regardless of the number of students that attend Portland State University. The 'commuter' or 'non-traditional' college tag is often thrown out for the reason behind this. So what you have is Johnny and Sally High School Graduate who runs off to a traditional University, gets degree, enters the work force in the Portland metro area, then ultimately attends PSU while working to obtain their Graduate degree. The 'traditional' students that attend PSU still live with Mom and Dad out in the burbs and the majority of campus life to them is either a) a Tri Met schedule or b) how in the hell do I find a parking spot when the lot is full, I'm driving down Broadway, and class starts in three minutes.

PSU realizes that they are getting snubbed on funds due to the small amount of 'traditional' students, so it has made an effort to increase those 'traditional' student numbers. The two areas that they have control over and seem to be focusing on are a) improved educational programs, and b) athletics. The result has been a larger increase (%) in 'traditional' students than that of UO or OSU in the past year or two.

The increased effort by the Athletic Department is obvious. Athletics barely chugged along for years since we jumped from DII as if it were on autopilot. If you were to look into the crystal ball five years ago and see what you see today, I think it would shock a lot of people. An AD that is focused on student involvement and doesn't appear to want to springboard to another school? Legitimate plans for a basketball only venue? Jerry Freaking Glanville?

There is much, much, much more to do, and there are many problems with Portland State Athletics. However, the strides in the background by PSU that most people in the Portland area don't see are being taken. If the next President of the University sees that Athletics plays a part in building the 'traditional' (funding) student base, we may be shocked in what we see in the next few years as well....
 
martymoose said:
PortlandStater said:
I don't want to start yet another thread that mainy deals with facilities, so let's use this one.

Obviously, things won't be the same in the South Park Blocks the next seasons. With Glanville and the championship (yay!), there will be a lot more attention to PSU Athletics both locally and nationally.

Immediate issues:

How can we accomodate fans until we have something decent? Even if there will be a new arena/expansion of the Stott, it will take years to complete. How will we deal with more than 1,500 people wanting to see the game?

How can the program capitalize on the sudden interest financially? Bigger corporate sponsors? Private donors? More/better focus on merchandise? A PSU store near the Ducks and Beavers stores (okay, this is going a bit far...)?

What is our main target audience? PSU has been investing heaviliy in on-campus housing, which is a good thing as it gets us away from the commuter thing. But what else? Old people seem to like our sports. Families not so much (because of the drinking? Or the missing kids tickets?).

I don't subscribe to the recurrent argument that PSU as an urban institution has a much larger community and should therefore have it easier to fill a place. Portland offers so much good culture/entertainment that people often seem to have better things to do than going to games more often than occasionally. If I lived in Corvallis I'd probably go to marathon-chess tourneys just to have something to do at all.

Looking forward to your input...
Click to expand...

Here is my take....

PSU more often than not gets snubbed on the allocation of funds by the State of Oregon. UO/OSU get the bulk of the available funds regardless of the number of students that attend Portland State University. The 'commuter' or 'non-traditional' college tag is often thrown out for the reason behind this. So what you have is Johnny and Sally High School Graduate who runs off to a traditional University, gets degree, enters the work force in the Portland metro area, then ultimately attends PSU while working to obtain their Graduate degree. The 'traditional' students that attend PSU still live with Mom and Dad out in the burbs and the majority of campus life to them is either a) a Tri Met schedule or b) how in the hell do I find a parking spot when the lot is full, I'm driving down Broadway, and class starts in three minutes.

PSU realizes that they are getting snubbed on funds due to the small amount of 'traditional' students, so it has made an effort to increase those 'traditional' student numbers. The two areas that they have control over and seem to be focusing on are a) improved educational programs, and b) athletics. The result has been a larger increase (%) in 'traditional' students than that of UO or OSU in the past year or two.

The increased effort by the Athletic Department is obvious. Athletics barely chugged along for years since we jumped from DII as if it were on autopilot. If you were to look into the crystal ball five years ago and see what you see today, I think it would shock a lot of people. An AD that is focused on student involvement and doesn't appear to want to springboard to another school? Legitimate plans for a basketball only venue? Jerry Freaking Glanville?

There is much, much, much more to do, and there are many problems with Portland State Athletics. However, the strides in the background by PSU that most people in the Portland area don't see are being taken. If the next President of the University sees that Athletics plays a part in building the 'traditional' (funding) student base, we may be shocked in what we see in the next few years as well....
Click to expand...

As a long time Big Sky Conference fan (Montana State alum and fan), I am one of those people who has long thought that Portland State and Sacramento State were the sleeping giants of the conference. That is, if those programs ever developed a student following, an alum following and got political and financial support from their respective in-house administration and their state legislatures, both would take off and become dominant athletic forces in the conference. It sounds like PSU is turning that corner and if so, in 5 years, it will be "watch out" for the rest of the BSC. That would be good for the conference as a whole, I think, and therefore I hope it happens. Same with Sac State.
 
I think there will always be a commuter school aspect to Portland State. That doesn't mean there aren't things the AD can do ON CAMPUS to at least mitigate that. Paper the freaking halls, let students know there's a game. UNDERSTAND that even those efforts will end up being seen as a "one student at a time" effort, which is going to be far more effective than any media campaign IMO, but certainly slow in building.

Sac State is worse, BTW... commuter school where most kids have to drive to commute. Portland State can at least act like downtown's backyard, and have a community in place. Sacramento State is in the wrong part of town for an effective demonstration. The recent development involving Sac wanting to expand the "arena" within Yosemite Hall "while they wait" for funds- supposedly already approved- to ever be ready for the student wellness center / new arena project- that is a serious red flag for me. Something there is very wrong. I know Sac is building a fieldhouse for the football program, but when have they drawn enough to justify it? Will that effort be an upgrade for the football program down the line, or is it more for trying to get major track & field events back there?

One other thought comes to mind: since it appears that the arena renovation / new arena concept involves the current Stott Center, I might suggest that something be attached to it that regularly draws as many students as possible to that area. Restaurant? Some required class? A far larger area for a "Student Union", perhaps? Make Stott a center of campus.
 
I don't know the details, but I do know there are plans to build more student housing in the near future. I've always felt this was necessary for PSU to grow up as an University, however, you're right, there are other things that can and need to be done in the meantime. I think the new student rec. center is really going to help PSU in many ways, including freeing up the Stott Center to remodel, renovate and make the building one primarily for athletics. I get frustrated with PSU moving so slow on many fronts, not only athletically, but I do understand that the State of Oregon, for many reasons (most of them political) has never supported Portland State like it should. I hope this changes, but I'm not holding my breath. Therefore, Portland State must think out of the box, remember this is the College that would not die!
 
Pounder said:
I think there will always be a commuter school aspect to Portland State. That doesn't mean there aren't things the AD can do ON CAMPUS to at least mitigate that. Paper the freaking halls, let students know there's a game. UNDERSTAND that even those efforts will end up being seen as a "one student at a time" effort, which is going to be far more effective than any media campaign IMO, but certainly slow in building.

Sac State is worse, BTW... commuter school where most kids have to drive to commute. Portland State can at least act like downtown's backyard, and have a community in place. Sacramento State is in the wrong part of town for an effective demonstration. The recent development involving Sac wanting to expand the "arena" within Yosemite Hall "while they wait" for funds- supposedly already approved- to ever be ready for the student wellness center / new arena project- that is a serious red flag for me. Something there is very wrong. I know Sac is building a fieldhouse for the football program, but when have they drawn enough to justify it? Will that effort be an upgrade for the football program down the line, or is it more for trying to get major track & field events back there?

One other thought comes to mind: since it appears that the arena renovation / new arena concept involves the current Stott Center, I might suggest that something be attached to it that regularly draws as many students as possible to that area. Restaurant? Some required class? A far larger area for a "Student Union", perhaps? Make Stott a center of campus.
Click to expand...

Your last point is especially good. I've know quite a few commuting students who never crossed the park blocks from their classes in the Business, Engineering, and Public Affairs buildings. If they did, it was to go to the library and that was it. Creating something on the Stott side of campus would keep the teams that play there in the student consciousness a bit more. Actually, even renovating the side of Stott that faces the Park Blocks would create a more inviting feeling about the whole building.
 
I hope the Stott remodel is sensible. They should keep the existing court as it is and create a new arena where the requetball/squash courts are now. We need the existing court and a new court to satisfy all the practise schedule demand. Right now, scheduling practise for men's and women's basketball, wrestling, volleyball on one court is ridiculous.
 
Another consideration is the track and tennis situation. I assume the rooftop facilities are used for practices by those programs but I don't know for sure. It seems like any reconstruction would have to account for those amenties by either replacing them or not touching them in the first place.
 
ManOfVision said:
Another consideration is the track and tennis situation. I assume the rooftop facilities are used for practices by those programs but I don't know for sure. It seems like any reconstruction would have to account for those amenties by either leaving them alone or not touching them in the first place.
Click to expand...

Those tennis courts are crap. They can't effectively practise on them because the roof supports are too close to the base lines. The track team doesn't use it at all.
 
ManOfVision said:
Another consideration is the track and tennis situation. I assume the rooftop facilities are used for practices by those programs but I don't know for sure. It seems like any reconstruction would have to account for those amenties by either leaving them alone or not touching them in the first place.
Click to expand...

Wasn't there talk once about an indoor practice facility for FB? If thats true couldn't the incorporate all these sports into one renovation? It would be the best way to do it in my opinion if they want an indoor facility for FB. I will be honest though I don't think they need one but hey if it helps with recruiting go right ahead.
 
With the upgrade to field turf on the practice field, I think the indoor practice facility idea was axed.
 
PSU plans Stott Center facelift

http://media.www.dailyvanguard.com/media/storage/paper941/news/2008/04/04/Sports/Psu-Plans.Stott.Center.Facelift-3304309.shtml
 
Wow! Private financing?! If that kind of money is out there, why wasn't this done earlier? I'm surprised by this approach, but excited as it could bring new people into the PSU fold and save taxpayer dollars. This should also make it very hard for faculty or a new president to derail the plans.

It sounds like the vision is realistic and not some pie in the sky dream. Thank goodness the funding for the student rec center passed a few years ago!
 
Torre Chisholm was brought in specifically because he has been successfully in new arena projects in the past. This just proves once again that he was the right guy to hire.
 
skywaker9 said:
Torre Chisholm was brought in specifically because he has been successfully in new arena projects in the past. This just proves once again that he was the right guy to hire.
Click to expand...

Really? What other arena projects?
 
skywaker9 said:
Torre Chisholm was brought in specifically because he has been successfully in new arena projects in the past. This just proves once again that he was the right guy to hire.
Click to expand...

He has? When and where did he build new a new arena? UC Irvine built their arena before Chisholm got there.

Until this gets done, this proves nothing.

If there was a game, the team bus has barely left the team hotel. There is a long way to go.
 
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