Campus Updates

[ytownchief22]

According to JT, construction won't start until the fall... Yikes.

[go guins]

According to JT, construction won't start until the fall... Yikes.

I suppose there is a ton of "behind the bleachers" work they could do in the fall, but that does seem odd to start a football stadium construction project at the start of football season?!?!

I have seen nothing to make me thing this is part of an overall plan to keep Stambaugh Stadium competitive with the top 1AA programs in the country, but I have not seen, hear, or read anything to that effect.  While this project if DEFINITELY needed and will be a very welcome upgrade for the specific area it addresses, it does nothing to coordinate with a much needed entire stadium upgrade project.  When first opened, Stambaugh was the finest facility in the league, and even when we moved to the MVFC I still believe it was tops.  We now have an aging facility lacking many amenities of top tier programs, and IMO ranks no better than middle of the field in MVFC and nowhere near the top 10 in 1AA football.  If you want to recruit and play at the top level, your facilities need to be at or near the top.  Certainly the WATTS is there, but Stambaugh isn't any longer.  If only our AD had vision..............alas, it is up to the University President to create and lead another campus drive.  If I were JT, I'd get some help!

[Double ET]

According to JT, construction won't start until the fall... Yikes.

It really should not be a surprise to anyone.
They had the entire summer to dig up and close Lincoln Ave for re-construction. But no! they started the work the first week of Fall Semester creating a mess on campus. If that wasn't bad enough, they started the Wick Ave. project by closing Wick Ave also (almost simultaneously).
To top it off, they closed several parking lots to construct the student dormitories. Students and faculty drove around everyday looking for parking spaces.
In one of the meetings, I was arguing with the director of the parking services about his announcement of closing the Lincoln parking deck  ( around 1000 parking spaces) without any replacing the parking spaces (he plans to put in a surface lot with less than 25% parking spaces targeted for completion 1 year later).
I asked him what was his plan to replace these lost parking spaces. His answer was, "I don't know, we are studying it ..."
Many of my students were late for class because they could not find parking spaces (many even left work early).

It was even worse this winter because City of Youngstown and the campus road crew did very little to clear the  roads, walk ways and parking lots. The campus was a mess after each snow storm. Roads were fine until I entered the city and the campus. These were not side streets. These were major streets which included Wick, Belmont, Fifth ave, Lincoln, Rayen, 422 and MLK.

[go guins]

One word comes to mind, bureaucrats.  The bane of modern society. 
Historically "bureaucrat" was not a negative term, but it is almost like a swear word today.  That is the same thing that bogs down any efforts at sports marketing as well.  Everybody hard at work doing their jobs, and no good coming from all the effort!

[ysuseasonticket]

According to JT, construction won't start until the fall... Yikes.

Come on.....fall???

I won't believe it till I see it.

[go guins]

According to JT, construction won't start until the fall... Yikes.

Come on.....fall???

I won't believe it till I see it.

Ask yourself this, "what would be the worst, most inconvenient time for this project."  If your answer is "fall" then the start date will be fall!  Pretty simple if you think like a bureaucrat!  The good news is, the worse the mess is around Stambaugh stadium, the better the chance we have a great season and draw a bunch of people that can't park, etc.  This is a proven variant on Murphy's law!  "What can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time!"

[Double ET]

One word comes to mind, bureaucrats.  The bane of modern society. 
Historically "bureaucrat" was not a negative term, but it is almost like a swear word today.  That is the same thing that bogs down any efforts at sports marketing as well.  Everybody hard at work doing their jobs, and no good coming from all the effort!

Well said, Go....
Many people are working hard doing the same thing as their predecessors . Unfortunately, status Quo just won't cut it in today's competitive environment. Others will eat your lunch. In order to compete for the entertainment $,   we must do aggressive marketing and provide value for our perspective customers.

MBB played in nearly empty basketball court most of the season. There were practically no promotions. Promotion for one of the game was to get in for free if you get a coupon at an ice cream vendors. I was going to go until I found out that I had to make a trip to take the coupon to the ticket office in the stadium before the game day to exchange for a ticket. Gee ,,,,

[ytownchief22]

A contractor has not been selected yet. Nothing can be done until that happens.

[YSUGO]

With attendance being pathetic closing the other side shouldn’t be a big deal

[guinpen]

With attendance being pathetic closing the other side shouldn’t be a big deal

It would be for me, my seats are on that side

[IAA Fan]

Come on guys is it that bad around here that we have to always fall back to the same conversations. We still attack a coach that is not even around anymore. We still attack an AD's ability on facilities even after we have said on multiple occasions that his activities regarding facilities is not in question, but rather his ability to hire coaches that is in question. Then of course Saint Tressel will fix all, even though this is the one the areas where he would be my first thought as to being most responsible. Let's see .. so since you currently feel that Calhoun and Pelini are great choices, they are Tressel's doing and will remain that way until you no longer like them, then you can just blame Strollo.

I would like to see this project done by the first home game, but the first televised play-off game is just as good. BTW, our facilities are more than I-AA ...by far. Stambaugh is no exception. The only thing that is crucial would be the new booth and that can very easily be done by fall ...the classrooms and media center clearly will take more time. You are just like one of the guys that I tailgate with. He has always been upset that the new scoreboard looks "high school" (small); yet he completely ignores the fact that it is our second scoreboard. Have faith.

[go guins]

1AA, you are SO predictable.  I could have writing that response for you!

Let me get this straight, "We still attack an AD's ability on facilities even after we have said on multiple occasions that his activities regarding facilities is not in question"  Does that mean because you say it isn't in question, it is not within our rights to question?  Seriously?

Whatever. 

In fairness to me, I have never been anti Montgomery.  Never saw him fumble or throw an interception or miss a block.  I have pointed out the difference in offensive philosophy between Bo and Shane and, IMO, an untenable difference between the HC and OC that should have (and has) led to the departure of Monty.  Shane isn't wrong, Bo isn't right, they just differ and that can't work longer term.  BUT I have never been anti Montgomery.  I also think in fairness to Bo, he came in acting a lot like the blustery foul mouthed guy that got fired at Nebraska.  I don't know what has mellowed him here, but his behavior has been FAR better than before YSU and better than I expected.  Bo deserves credit for him improvement.

How any rational human being can look at the changes in YSU during BOTH of the tenures of Jim Tressel at YSU and not admire what is true greatness, is amazing to me.  By the same token, how anyone could look at the dismal leadership of the athletic department for the last 20 years and not be aghast at the lack of leadership direction and accomplishment is also amazing to me.   

You have the right to love the work of Strollo, that's fine by me, but I reserve the right to make up my own mind, thank you!

[ytownchief22]

It's very perplexing to me that this project has taken over 2 years to even start since it was announced. Shouldn't be surprised tho I guess... On campus baseball stadium and a new tennis center with a bubble over it is next on the list.

[IAA Fan]

1AA, you are SO predictable.  I could have writing that response for you!

Let me get this straight, "We still attack an AD's ability on facilities even after we have said on multiple occasions that his activities regarding facilities is not in question"  Does that mean because you say it isn't in question, it is not within our rights to question?  Seriously?

Whatever. 

In fairness to me, I have never been anti Montgomery.  Never saw him fumble or throw an interception or miss a block.  I have pointed out the difference in offensive philosophy between Bo and Shane and, IMO, an untenable difference between the HC and OC that should have (and has) led to the departure of Monty.  Shane isn't wrong, Bo isn't right, they just differ and that can't work longer term.  BUT I have never been anti Montgomery.  I also think in fairness to Bo, he came in acting a lot like the blustery foul mouthed guy that got fired at Nebraska.  I don't know what has mellowed him here, but his behavior has been FAR better than before YSU and better than I expected.  Bo deserves credit for him improvement.

How any rational human being can look at the changes in YSU during BOTH of the tenures of Jim Tressel at YSU and not admire what is true greatness, is amazing to me.  By the same token, how anyone could look at the dismal leadership of the athletic department for the last 20 years and not be aghast at the lack of leadership direction and accomplishment is also amazing to me.   

You have the right to love the work of Strollo, that's fine by me, but I reserve the right to make up my own mind, thank you!

Does this mean that you are as predictable as I ? I have no issue with anything that you said. To me, you are wrong. Tressel was a terrible AD, plain and simple. As a head coach he changed our offense to an offense that would not work in our new conference, when we had been running another offense with tremendous success. Why did Tressel make those changes? Clearly he needed to impress someone else besides YSU fans and Gateway fans. (I guess 4 national championship appearances and 3 titles in the previous 5-years was not good enough?) Then when you finally get an OC that runs a modern version of the spread option, also having tremendous success with it ...people complain.   As President, Tressel has been touting the same campus updates that were touted before he arrived as president, yet I do not see you giving Cynthia Anderson any credit. Humphreys and Cochran worked tirelessly on what started out as "Campus 2000", which is where just about every change so far has come from. Your AD was a player when the MAC rejected us and said that it was drastically-superior facilities at NIU and Buffalo that gave them entrance and not YSU. Though that was far from the true reason, is was a true statement. So as AD, he is making our school and athletics more DI ... yet you give me nonsense that there is no direction. The went from no women's athletics (NCAA sanction bad) to quite a vast program, now you can say it is the wrong direction, but saying it is no direction is simply not true. Strollo has accomplished more than all of his predecessors combined. Heck, Malmisar voted against the building of Stambaugh and we made him AD over the man that had the idea and got it built. All of this being said, I still have many things that I can complain about Ron Strollo and I absolutely love JT as a coach, a president and a man. His accomplishments are more than noteworthy. So I did not like him as an AD ...he also did the job for less than $20k salary each year. I am on he field taking a few pictures of his introduction to the HOF & he walks up to me, shakes my hand and asks me how my father was doing . then remembering my father had bad eyesight he asks me how his eyes we doing. This is what makes him great. Strollos greatness stems from his ties. He is a west-sider, Fitch grad and star player, 2-time captain of YSU football teams during the "glory years". Now he give 110% to YSU and I do not even recognize the campus anymore because of his changes. You can find plenty of thing that you would do differntly than both Strollo and Tressel, but they are both the right people at the right time.

[go guins]

1AA, you are going to start out by highlighting Jim Tressel's inability to coach?  Interesting approach.  Stupid, but interesting. 
I care about football, all the other stuff is "nice" it is "fine" and I'm glad each sport has it's supports, but sports at YSU is all about football.  One football game at YSU draws more fans than both golf, both track, softball and baseball and bowling combined for a season.  Virtually nobody in Youngstown, YSU or on your blog cares about anything but football.  Look at the YSU football record with Tressel on campus and without Tressel on campus, no comparison.  Plain and simple, you win with JT is here, lose when he isn't.  Strollo is a bureaucrat, providing -0- inspiration or leadership.  Also plain and simple.  I accept without challenge that Strollo is a fine man, I'm sure his Fitch education serves him will, and I'd love to have him as a neighbor, but as a leader? Not so much.