G'Town: Thompson Center Groundbreaking

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://www.guhoyas.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/061214aaa.html


Georgetown University announced today that it is scheduled to move forward with the construction of the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center. Last week, the University's Board of Directors approved the next phase of the project and site work construction is scheduled to begin the first week in August.

A formal groundbreaking ceremony for the Thompson Athletics Center, named in honor of the Hall of Fame Men's Basketball Coach who guided the Hoyas for 27 years and led the program to the 1984 NCAA Championship, will be held on the site on Friday, Sept. 12.


The Thompson Athletics Center, a major priority of Georgetown's $1.5 billion For Generations to Come fundraising campaign, is expected to be completed in August 2016. The $62 million project will be completely supported through philanthropy.

To recap: $62 million for locker rooms for men's and women's basketball; $1.5 billion for "Generations to Come" fundraising campaign: $0 to get multi-sport field named, or even brought into the 21st century.

[citdog]

http://www.guhoyas.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/061214aaa.html



To recap: $62 million for locker rooms for men's and women's basketball; $1.5 billion for "Generations to Come" fundraising campaign: $0 to get multi-sport field named, or even brought into the 21st century.[/FONT][/FONT]


OBVIOUSLY it's just a lack of money. xrolleyesx

[DFW HOYA]

Hope it goes better than this one did.

http://www.guhoyas.com/genrel/050305aab.html

[Bogus Megapardus]

They're waiting on MSF until the "peers" show up. Then spectacular things will happen there. You'll see. xsmugx


One question about the $1.5 Billion being spent - will the fellas get to pee indoors now?

[RichH2]

:)Oh well that's GU. Football just doesn't wave the dog. Guess they'll put football on the list next century .

[MplsBison]

If Gtown had an invitation to become a major college football program, its alumni would give/invest in that.

They don't care about minor league football.

[Bogus Megapardus]

If Gtown had an invitation to become a major college football program, its alumni would give/invest in that.

They don't care about minor league football.

Fascinating. Where did you come by this information?

My understanding is that Georgetown fans and alums would much rather play competitive Ivy League-level football. They all agree that the stadium must be finished, but also that football must remain on campus. There's no passion whatsoever, as far as I can tell, for the Hoyas to play at a large, leased/rented off-campus stadium (which "major college football" would require).

[MplsBison]

Fascinating. Where did you come by this information?

My understanding is that Georgetown fans and alums would much rather play competitive Ivy League-level football. They all agree that the stadium must be finished, but also that football must remain on campus. There's no passion whatsoever, as far as I can tell, for the Hoyas to play at a large, leased/rented off-campus stadium (which "major college football" would require).

Not necessarily. But it doesn't matter, that is not on the table.

If they all agreed the MSF should be finished, then they'd be donating to it like the are some basketball facility. That's the point. Gtown bball is big time, major league and it excites the donating alumni. Football does not excite them and so they don't donate to it.

[DFW HOYA]

They're waiting on MSF until the "peers" show up. Then spectacular things will happen there. You'll see. xsmugx


Ah, the well-worn conspiracy theory that if the Ivy League or CAA (or for that matter, the ACC) came calling, Georgetown will roll out some phenomenal stadium plan to spite the Pennsylvania League. Were it that simple.

The Multi-Sport Field stalemate is now approaching 3,200 days, and much could be written about it without coming to any conclusion. No one was "against" it, some money was in the bank, but no one could push it forward.

In some sense, building projects at Georgetown are about someone stepping up and demanding action. When John Thompson was basketball coach, he never made a big deal about facilities and as such, nothing got done--McDonough Gymnasium has more in common with Rose Hill Gym than any Big East facility. But when John Thompson III was finishing his first contract at the time of the 2007 Final Four, it was clear that Georgetown would have to make a commitment to building (not just talking about) a practice facility if JTIII was to renew his deal--or else he would leave. JTIII got his deal, but despite over seven years before a shovel goes into the ground, it's going to get done.

As for the MSF, a step back. Former coach Bob Benson pushed long and hard for the MSF, arguing to anyone who would listen at the time that recruiting could not stay afloat if Georgetown did not commit to some minimum level of a facility. Remember, this wasn't Fitton Field he was promoting, but a 4,500 seat facility with locker rooms.

In September 2005, the temporary seats went up. Three months later, Benson was out of a job, with a new athletic director (Bernard Muir, the former associate AD for football at Notre Dame) who was not going to tie his reputation to the plan of a former coach. Benson's sucessor, Kevin Kelly, never made a public effort to fight for the MSF, and was similarly guarded when the scholarship question would come up in recent years.

Muir left suddenly in 2009 and Georgetown was without an AD for almost two years, whereupon the practice facility lapped the MSF on the development calendar. When Lee Reed took over as AD, getting the now-delayed practice facility for JTIII was Job 1 and that, absent any politicking from Kelly or lacrosse coach Dave Urick, the MSF inertia would continue along.

Enter new head football coach Rob Sgarlata. He's seen it all in 24 years as a player and coach at Georgetown, but he's got to choose his battles, too. What does he fight for first? Facilities? Scholarships? Admissions? Locker rooms? There are lots of needs, but he's not to get them all anytime soon. Then again, neither did basketball.

And on the periphery of all this is the PL. The PL nay not have admitted Georgetown in 2001 if Georgetown remained committed to play on Kehoe Field--the word about the new facility was likely enough to assuage the presidents that change was coming. Yet the PL never made it a requirement for membership, has not enforced a minimum facility standard, and as such the PL press corps at the Morning Call and Express-Times exercise their annual rant against playing in DC, to no effect.

There will be a basketball facility, albeit 30 years late, because someone stood up and others stepped forward. If the MSF is going to get done, someone inside or outside GU has to do the same.

[MplsBison]

What I was trying to say is, if the ACC came calling for Georegtown to upgrade football and then join the league - that would actually excite Gtown alumni into donating money to Gtown football.

[Sader87]

GTown seems to be in a uniquely tough quandry vis a vis what to do about football. I defer to DFW and other Hoya posters, but wasn't the new Big East pretty much created with an animus toward football to a certain extent?

It seems like it will be hard to put too much $$$/time/energy etc on football when pretty much all their eggs were placed in the hoop basket.

[DFW HOYA]

GTown seems to be in a uniquely tough quandry vis a vis what to do about football. I defer to DFW and other Hoya posters, but wasn't the new Big East pretty much created with an animus toward football to a certain extent?

No animus I'm aware of (three schools play football, BTW), just a preference for schools willing to invest in basketball and a hesitance to schools that would be out the door at the first offer from Conference USA or the AAC.

Holy Cross seems ill-suited to want to be in the conversation. The Brooks-era philosophy seems to have become a natural firewall to playing games at the Centrum and recruiting well below the Ivy AI.