indoor practice facilities good/bad?

[tarmac]

How about some discussion on the advantages of having/not having an indoor practice facility. Does your school have one or planning on one in the future?

[FlyYtown]

YSU has the land all set to get their's up and running within the next few years. It will be across the street from Stambaugh. YSU is celebrating 100 years next year, so we will probably hear about it more then.

[PapaBear]

Assuming you have outdoor facilities that you can use when the weather cooperates, what could possibly be the downside to having an indoor facility? It allows virtually year-round skill work and team/timing work that you simply can't do in a gym. From where I sit, an indoor facility might be the single most valuable investment a college could make for its athletes.

[TexasTerror]

How about some discussion on the advantages of having/not having an indoor practice facility. Does your school have one or planning on one in the future?

Central Arkansas has one...the Pepsi Center. Scroll down to the bottom of the below link. They use it for baseball hitting when need be as well...

http://www.ucasports.com/ucasports.asp?id=14

[MplsBison]

I think they're great if you can afford one.

[BDK@YSU]

Here is the link to some info on the one we are planning to build:
http://cfweb.cc.ysu.edu/news/news_viewnew.cfm?RecNum=523

I don't think you'll get a lot of arguments against indoor practice facilities on this board. In addition to football, you can use them for soccer, indoor track, and anything else like intermural stuff. From an athletic standpoint, it just makes sense. But, if you're on the academic side of things... well, that link shows that there are some other serious fundraising projects going on at YSU to replace our business building, in addition to fixing up our engineering labs.

[TheBisonator]

NDSU just uses the Fargodome whenever available, but it's a city-run facility, which means there's schedule conflicts. The Bison can't just go indoors if there's a severe thunderstorm around the area. Otherwise, I'd love to see sometime in the future (once the west side arena addition is built) an indoor practice facility attached to the south end of the Dome. This could make the Fargodome a multi-purpose sports complex.

[majorbta]

ASU has the frame up for its indoor practice facility.

[ucdtim17]

There are much better things to spend money on in California than an indoor practice facility

[UCABEARS75]

There are much better things to spend money on in California than an indoor practice facility

Like earthquake shelters, LOL.

[ucdtim17]

Like earthquake shelters, LOL.


Not here. We don't get have the same earthquake risk they have on the coast (or the mountains for that matter) - it's a much less active seismic zone.

[ucdtim17]

Cal Poly is definitely a different story

[aggie6thman]

We also don't get severe weather here. No large thunderstorms, just periods with a lot of rain. In the summer the temp gets up over 100 (13 days straight last year) but that just toughens everyone up.

If anything, I think it is a great home field advantage, especially when playing against East Coast teams. They might be used to the heat, but not the dry heat we have in California.

[ucdtim17]

We get a lot more severe weather (well severe for california) than the coast. Yolo County had at least 3 separate tornado warnings (warning, as in, tornado on the ground or imminent) in my time at UCD. Natomas has gotten hit twice by tornadoes in recent years. These are F1 California-style tornadoes, but "severe" weather nonetheless.

And we had one magical snow day 5 years ago

[PantherRob82]

I think it's good to have both indoor and outdoor facitilies. Especially in areas with inclimate weather.

[McTailGator]

How about some discussion on the advantages of having/not having an indoor practice facility. Does your school have one or planning on one in the future?



None even planned for McNeese.

TOO many other priorities at this time.

[McTailGator]

There are much better things to spend money on in California than an indoor practice facility

Hell it's California. How many times does it rain on your practices a year? ONCE every 5 years. xsmiley_wix


We need a new Basketball arena before we go spending money on a practice facility. Hard to justify that kinda cash at this time.

[PantherRob82]

We're lucky and have an indoor practice facility (UNI-Dome), new basketball arena (McLeod Center), and an outdoor practice field.

[UAalum72]

If anything, I think it is a great home field advantage, especially when playing against East Coast teams. They might be used to the heat, but not the dry heat we have in California.
Since when is dry heat bad? I always figured it was heat plus high humidity was toughest.

[Col Hogan]

Practice? Practice? We're talking practice...not a game...Practice? Practice?

Sorry, I had an AI moment there...

UMass does not have an indoor facility, and is currently working to upgrade our outdoor facility with the same field turf we installed in McGuirk Alumni Stadium. With the other priorities we have at the university, I don't see an indoor facility any time soon.....xbawlingx

[ButlerGSU]

I think they are great if needed in your schools section of the country, Georgia Southern could never justify the cost.

[CSUBUCDAD]

I always thought you should practice in the conditions you play in. Don't make much sense to me to practice indoors all week just to have to play in the snow or rain or heat on Saturday.

[SoCon48]

I always thought you should practice in the conditions you play in. Don't make much sense to me to practice indoors all week just to have to play in the snow or rain or heat on Saturday.

Makes about as much sense as practicing in nice weather on Thursday and playing in the rain/snow on Saturday and vice versa.

Too, if your field is covered completely with snow on Thursday and you're travelling to Georgia Southern on Saturday, the team is severely limited in what they should have accomplished by practicing on an ice/snow covered field.

BTW, does your team practice during electrical storms? If so, I'd look closely as to a coaching change.

[JoshUCA]

I think the team really likes ours. In Conway, when it rains and storms it provides a place for the team to keep dry and safe and continue to practice. Our outdoor practice field is not in the best of shape when dry, much less when soaked with rain. So, I think it was a very good investment for UCA, plus I think some of the recruits are impressed by it.

[bigbluetiger]

TSU is getting one and I think it will be a tremendous recruiting advantage.

[CSUBUCDAD]

Makes about as much sense as practicing in nice weather on Thursday and playing in the rain/snow on Saturday and vice versa.

Too, if your field is covered completely with snow on Thursday and you're travelling to Georgia Southern on Saturday, the team is severely limited in what they should have accomplished by practicing on an ice/snow covered field.

BTW, does your team practice during electrical storms? If so, I'd look closely as to a coaching change.

Being a product of West Texas football there was no such thing as "indoor" practice facilities. If it got to bad outside we went in and watched film til it passed and went back out and picked up where we left off. Never too much rain, never too much cold, never too much heat. Only thing that got us off the field was a tornado or lightning too close.

[Pard4Life]

Um, bad... how can you can concentrate on your game plan when you are experiencing freezing or sweltering weather for the first time ever?

[aggie6thman]

Um, bad... how can you can concentrate on your game plan when you are experiencing freezing or sweltering weather for the first time ever?

Um, you are a football player and can handle that stuff.xnodx

[SoCon48]

Being a product of West Texas football there was no such thing as "indoor" practice facilities. If it got to bad outside we went in and watched film til it passed and went back out and picked up where we left off. Never too much rain, never too much cold, never too much heat. Only thing that got us off the field was a tornado or lightning too close.

Having coached high school for 10 years, I can tell you we lost a lot of valuable practice at in-orportune times due to T-storms in the Fall. We watched film on Sunday afternoons.

When the team is assembled for films, that counts into the maximum amount of practice time allowed by the state High school athletic assoc.
Colleges are allowed a max of 20 hrs teram practice by the NCAA per week also.
Films or blocking, kicking, tackling, running, passing?

For some reason, most NFL teams have indoor facil.