Issue with a new or renovated baseball stadium

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

Preliminary design renderings are going to be shown in a few months. Absolutely zero design has been done. Nothing but preliminary planning. And even still, the drawings that are coming, you won't be able to take much from them. We are in the absolute VERY beginning of this, so again, don't expect a new stadium anytime soon.

Why is this so hard for you all to understand?

Village idiot. Id put odds of new dnf being ready by 2017 at just over 50%

Id put odds of new dnf being ready by 2018 at 100%.

Maybe that isnt quick enough for you. It is happening. It is happening soon. There are already prelim designs. Different designs will come soon. Yes, in the next 4 months, you will see what new dnf will look like. Obviously, certain small things change along the build process but it is happening.

Not sure why you are on this crusade. All your post tell me is you know absolutely nothing that is going on.

[bulldogcountry1]

But what has he done to lose your confidence? I feel like people just assume a lot of things about Stricklin, then bash him for those assumptions. He isn't cutting corners on Davis Wade, and I can't imagine he's going to cut corners on DNF. He has no history of doing so for us to point to.

Sometimes I wonder if people who compare him to LT were even around during the LT days. I don't pretend to be in the know, but it's quite obvious that Sticklin is light years better than LT. LT didn't care what anyone outside of the the "cigar boys" thought. He had no vision. All he cared about was doing the minimum for the cheapest price.

With Stricklin, I at least feel ike I have a voice, whether I have money or not. He's very visual at events, he's in touch with technology and social media, and he listens. Is he great at selecting head coaches? I can't really answer that, but to compare him to compare him to LT is just insane.

[Esmerelda Villalobos]

Strick is no LT. Not even close.

[War Machine Dawg]

Sometimes I wonder if people who compare him to LT were even around during the LT days. I don't pretend to be in the know, but it's quite obvious that Sticklin is light years better than LT. LT didn't care what anyone outside of the the "cigar boys" thought. He had no vision. All he cared about was doing the minimum for the cheapest price.

With Stricklin, I at least feel ike I have a voice, whether I have money or not. He's very visual at events, he's in touch with technology and social media, and he listens. Is he great at selecting head coaches? I can't really answer that, but to compare him to compare him to LT is just insane.

He's not LT in terms of personality, tech, social media, etc. But I and several others see traces of the "poor ole MSU" mentality in him. Look no further than his comments just this week about money being a reason we hire assistant coaches instead of head coaches. If you can't see how that comment reeks of the LT mentality, I can't help you.

I'm far from convinced Stricklin has vision, as he really hasn't done anything that wasn't already at least conceived by Greg Byrne. And quite frankly, his hand was forced with DNF or I doubt we'd be seeing any action on this in the near future. Hell, we apparently can't even get some half-steps poured on the West side of the football stadium to solve the problem of those steep ass steps. And the hand rails made it worse, not better. He certainly hasn't shown the balls to stand up to the SEC the way Byrne did. We won't get into the hiring/firing part of his job, because I don't want this to become the 8 millionth Brick Ray pissing match thread. Our marketing hasn't really improved on his watch. The game day atmosphere of DWS has declined since he took over, with no real effort to improve it. And this is just off the top of my head.

Overall, I'd say Strick is a rich man's LT. I can live with him, but he's got to show me more at some point if I'm actually going to like him. The final plans of DNF will be a big factor for me personally.

[Coach34]

Building a whole new grandstand in the same location obviously means demolishing the existing structure. That project will take more than one year. Where we will play the season that this is going on?

Architect told me it would be a 2-phase project- build the grandstand 1st- play the season- then build the rest of the sourrounding areas

[Coach34]

And I think new grandstand for 2017- project complete in 2018

[BulldogBear]

Nah, I hate those big ol' mouthful type names. To be honest, in my mind, I still watch the dawgs play football at Scott Field. ***Where is Davis Wade Stadium?*** I HATE that the Scott Field part has been all but forgotten in television broadcasts. I do not want to see that happen at Dudy Noble Field. Keep the name UNCHANGED or the hell with a new stadium!

[preachermatt83]

Architect told me it would be a 2-phase project- build the grandstand 1st- play the season- then build the rest of the sourrounding areas

exactly.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Nah, I hate those big ol' mouthful type names. To be honest, in my mind, I still watch the dawgs play football at Scott Field. ***Where is Davis Wade Stadium?*** I HATE that the Scott Field part has been all but forgotten in television broadcasts. I do not want to see that happen at Dudy Noble Field. Keep the name UNCHANGED or the hell with a new stadium!

So you want to base a $35+ million dollar decision to build the best stadium in college baseball- that has TREMENDOUS impact on the program's long-term health- on what some TV announcer calls DNF in a broadcast? Yeah, that sounds good.*** Seriously, it would still be called Dudy Noble Field, but it just wouldn't be Polk-Dement Stadium anymore- which is more that fine by me after the way Polk has acted.

Honestly, the solution to tear down the grandstand is painfully obvious to 95% of the people who have put serious time into thinking about this. The only people who still think it's a good idea to keep the grandstand either A) have a terrible, irrational fear of any change, B) want to keep their seats for selfish reasons, or C) haven't really thought much into it and just assume anything more than a renovation would be a waste of money. The best thing for the health of MSU and the baseball program is to start over. Period.

As for where we play, I'd do a two-stage build as Coach says the architect told him. Put the essentials down first, then come back the next offseason and finish putting in the club level, skyboxes, finishing touches, etc. The good thing about open concourse is that this is relatively easily done.

[bulldogcountry1]

I'm just curious how we would pull off an open councourse concept at the current site. If it is going to be ground level like Trustmark, then we'd have to lower the field surface 15-20 ft. If not, then it would have to be elevated, which seems massively expensive and not very practical.

[messageboardsuperhero]

I'm just curious how we would pull off an open councourse concept at the current site. If it is going to be ground level like Trustmark, then we'd have to lower the field surface 15-20 ft. If not, then it would have to be elevated, which seems massively expensive and not very practical.

I'll tell you what's really impractical- spending $30 mil. putting lipstick on a pig and having a middle of the pack SEC West stadium, while we could spend $10 mil. more and have the best stadium in college baseball for the next 10 years. Especially when said new stadium would more than likely drastically increase our revenue, whereas a renovation still caps our revenue at a relatively low level compared to what we could make because of the lifetime seats. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if starting over was actually CHEAPER in the long run compared to a grandstand renovation.

Now THAT'S impractical.

[BulldogBear]

So you want to base a $35+ million dollar decision to build the best stadium in college baseball- that has TREMENDOUS impact on the program's long-term health- on what some TV announcer calls DNF in a broadcast? Yeah, that sounds good.*** Seriously, it would still be called Dudy Noble Field, but it just wouldn't be Polk-Dement Stadium anymore- which is more that fine by me after the way Polk has acted.

Honestly, the solution to tear down the grandstand is painfully obvious to 95% of the people who have put serious time into thinking about this. The only people who still think it's a good idea to keep the grandstand either A) have a terrible, irrational fear of any change, B) want to keep their seats for selfish reasons, or C) haven't really thought much into it and just assume anything more than a renovation would be a waste of money. The best thing for the health of MSU and the baseball program is to start over. Period.

As for where we play, I'd do a two-stage build as Coach says the architect told him. Put the essentials down first, then come back the next offseason and finish putting in the club level, skyboxes, finishing touches, etc. The good thing about open concourse is that this is relatively easily done.

I'm all for renovating or rebuilding. I'm just expressing the same frustration at rampant commercialization as plenty of others are!

[messageboardsuperhero]

I'm all for renovating or rebuilding. I'm just expressing the same frustration at rampant commercialization as plenty of others are!

I don't like the commercialization either, but people need to realize that this is going on everywhere. Have you seen Alex Box Stadium? All their ads make us look like amateurs. Baum Stadium has a lot of ads too. Texas A&M? They named their damn stadium Blue Bell Park. It's not like this is only an MSU thing. In fact, compared to other places, it's not too bad at all here. Love it or hate it, this is just the way college sports is these days- it's a business.

[sandwolf]

RealDeal is Goat

Haha, what did he do to get banned this time?

[engie]

I'm just curious how we would pull off an open councourse concept at the current site. If it is going to be ground level like Trustmark, then we'd have to lower the field surface 15-20 ft. If not, then it would have to be elevated, which seems massively expensive and not very practical.

We wouldn't have to do as much as you think really...
New Alex Box is an above-ground open-concourse example.

I like keeping the stadium mostly above ground for the intimidation factor from a distance -- although it stands to reason that it would definitely cost more...

[smootness]

He's not LT in terms of personality, tech, social media, etc. But I and several others see traces of the "poor ole MSU" mentality in him. Look no further than his comments just this week about money being a reason we hire assistant coaches instead of head coaches. If you can't see how that comment reeks of the LT mentality, I can't help you.

Perhaps it's just reality on some level? It's one thing for fans to say, 'We aren't poor ol' State anymore, we need to pay what everyone else does'. But the ADs have to actually be concerned with the money because you can't spend what you don't have.

And I still think everyone misread his comments (or Stricklin didn't answer it well, whichever way you want to define it) about hiring assistant coaches. I don't think he was saying, 'We are going to make a cheaper hire because I want to save money'. I think he was saying that hiring HCs has not statistically proven to be more of a guarantee of success than hiring ACs. So given that, it makes sense for State (who is still behind the schools we compete with for the most part in available funds) to spend less on the front end, then wait to see what we have before we throw more money at it.

Does it do us any good to spend $2 million for a HC rather than $1 million for an AC when the HC has no better chance to succeed than the AC? No. But that doesn't mean we won't spend $2 million or more on the AC once it's clear he's the man for the job. It's not being cheap, it's being smart to give us the best chance of success competing against those with more resources.

[War Machine Dawg]

Perhaps it's just reality on some level? It's one thing for fans to say, 'We aren't poor ol' State anymore, we need to pay what everyone else does'. But the ADs have to actually be concerned with the money because you can't spend what you don't have.

And I still think everyone misread his comments (or Stricklin didn't answer it well, whichever way you want to define it) about hiring assistant coaches. I don't think he was saying, 'We are going to make a cheaper hire because I want to save money'. I think he was saying that hiring HCs has not statistically proven to be more of a guarantee of success than hiring ACs. So given that, it makes sense for State (who is still behind the schools we compete with for the most part in available funds) to spend less on the front end, then wait to see what we have before we throw more money at it.

Does it do us any good to spend $2 million for a HC rather than $1 million for an AC when the HC has no better chance to succeed than the AC? No. But that doesn't mean we won't spend $2 million or more on the AC once it's clear he's the man for the job. It's not being cheap, it's being smart to give us the best chance of success competing against those with more resources.

Until recently, you'd have been spot on about us not having the cash to pay for proven HCs. But as Engie has shown repeatedly here, we're about to be have one of the top 25 athletic budgets in the entire nation. If you'd told me that even just 10 years ago, I'd have laughed at you. As a 3rd generation MSU alum, who had to suffer with LT as our AD for over 2/3s of my life, that type of athletic budget was incomprehensible to me. I get that we're still a "have not" compared to some of the other SEC schools. Hell, aTm is dropping half a billion just on a stadium reno. Believe me, I get it.

But there was a time we were a have not on the level of LA Tech, USM, and directional LA. We aren't there anymore, either. We're no longer in the position of being forced to gamble on an assistant based purely on economics. I'm not against hiring an assistant, if he's the right guy for the job and wins the process. But let's make sure we're looking hard at successful HCs, too. That's the thing I'm saying and I think people need to understand. We're now a national heavyweight, even if we're only 6-8 in our conference. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around that. Next time our position is open, we should at least take a shot at poaching a solid mid-tier HC before jumping straight into the AC pool of candidates.

[Coach34]

Haha, what did he do to get banned this time?

Not sure what the final straw was- Scooba popped him this time