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Gnomes & pucks: this thread sucks

canesproponent said:
You have to view it from the lens of our "true" competitors.

UM will never lose a baseball player to a Big-10 or NOrtheast school due to the weather of those regions.

I have been to the stadiums of Stanford, Fullerton, USC, UCLA, Pepperdine, Irvine and Long Beach State. MArk Light in its current version is better than any of the California baseball stadiums. The "Dirt Bags" play in a converted minor league park, but have a terrible game-day atmosphere. They also use a high school field for practice.

South Carolina, LSU and Mississippi State have the best stadiums in all of college baseball.

UF and FSU seem to have much better stadiums as well.

Mississippi, Alabama (imagine what $43M buys you in Tuscaloosa), Arkansas and Georgia all have better stadiums as well.

In Texas, A&M and UT have much better stadiums. Rice's stadium is comparable to Mark Light.

That is why I believe that UM is a top-30 venue.

From what I heard this weekend, the batting cages are fully funded. John Jay, Yonder, Alex Rodrigues, DiMare family and a few others have agreed to donate (not sure on amounts), and they are going to try and re-build the Ron Fraser building as well.

They are hoping for a good year that will generate enthusiasm for the endeavor. The IPF hurts us due to donor fatigue....

Batting cages will be installed either way... That is what I heard today.
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I looked up the Cali school stadiums you mentioned and I'm really shocked at some of them, who knew?
 
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Half of those Cali schools are private, so it makes sense, just like the Canes' situation.

The SEC is rolling in additional television monies that spread throughout the departments. Even Mizzou (my alma mater) has made upgrades rivaling what we have here. When I was a student there, the field and stands were reminiscent of the Bad News Bears' field. My, how things have changed in this country.
 
Lance Roffers said:
It was meant as a simple observation from someone who lives in Springfield, MO and knows full well how little relevance Missouri State on anything in the sports world, that they’d have better baseball facilities.

What you wrote above is not true though. It’s a basketball school. Plain and simple. Baseball is as much an afterthought sports there as it is at Miami. I am simply relaying an outsider’s point of view that I would’ve expected a school getting the revenues they do to have much better facilities than Missouri State and it’s only true in football.

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While I was at Mizzou, I bowled against the Bears of (Southwest) Missouri State. They were one of only six schools at the time (1989) that gave scholarships for bowling nationally. Top five school along with CMS (the Mules!) too.

Again, we are living in a new world... two of my youth bowlers I coach in Broward are getting 75% scholarships to a small school in Alabama. There are several dozen schools now that will provide financial assistance for a sport such as bowling. Mostly schools like West Texas State, Spring Hill College, Lindenwood U, McKendree, Martin Methodist, etc.

Relevance? These smaller schools; ie. Missouri State, Boise State, North Dakota State, Liberty, etc. want to make things happen and are choosing to do so whether they have the funds or not, whether they can raise them or not, whether they can find the funds or not.

That has been part of the story over the last 20 years, the evolution of the FBS growing to 130 teams (116 teams in 2000). The number of schools that have NO business playing at that level, but want the possible windfall that could be there for them if they luck into a good conference or bowl game proceeds or donors that want to feel important funding something. That includes four schools in this state alone (2000 was the first year for USF at the D-1A level).

Sorry, I jumped around a bit. Basically, Schools are spending mad money right now for many reasons and getting it from a multitude of sources. We need Blake James and the school to continue to explore any and all avenues of revenue or donation streams that he/they can find, whether obvious or outside the box.
 
QuatroCane said:
I looked up the Cali school stadiums you mentioned and I'm really shocked at some of them, who knew?
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I already addressed Long Beach State, but Stanford really surprised me. Its stadium is slightly worse than Georgia Tech's. Very surprising. They have a sunken field, but the baseball stadium is the black sheep of the campus.

Fullerton - Huge public school comprised of "financially limited" alumni in a moderate-income part of the state. Am still not sure how they consistently win and rival UM in championships.....

USC - Their stadium is an eyesore. The water polo teams, tennis teams and volleyball teams have MUCH nicer facilities. The stadium is "cringe worthy". Comparable to Mark Light prior to the renovations. (1970s stadium....)

UCLA - The city of Angels owns the stadium. Major league batting cages that are worth more than the rest of the stadium. Wooden bleachers..... Enough said.

Pepperdine - Best location of ANY stadium in the country. The stadium is located on a bluff on the peak of a mountain in Malibu. Unfortunately, it is a high school stadium with wooden bleachers. (Same with Loyola Marymount.)

Irvine - Great coach and an appalling stadium. They deserve better.

In the ACC, Clemson, UNC, FSU and UVA have better stadiums, BUT these stadiums cater to" Boomers". They do not have the entrance that we have, nor the plethora of food options. These 3 stadiums are built for people that arrive at the game and sit in a seat for 3 hours. They do not have a concourse similar to ours, and children cannot run around the stadium. They have chair-backs throughout, but are geared toward an older crowd. I still prefer UM's, but these three stadiums do look like minor league parks. Many parents in Miami (many) arrive at Mark Light and "release" their children. The "openness" of Miami's stadium and the familial environment is a HUGE advantage. At these three stadiums, you have a seat, and you sit there. Yes, they have a field where current students can watch the game and covertly drink, but all three stadiums are built for the Boomer generation.
 
Claiming to live in Springfield, Missouri and not understanding the history and purpose of Hammons Stadium is a pretty big blunder.
 
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Jaromir Jagr said:
Claiming to live in Springfield, Missouri and not understanding the history and purpose of Hammons Stadium is a pretty big blunder.
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You mean like working the opening of the stadium as a member of the athletic department and knowing that the minor league team does not own the stadium and that Missouri State played there before the minor league team even moved to Springfield? You mean like knowing the cages are in the Bill Rowe indoor training facility and not associated with the minor league team?

Also, it’s Hammons Field.
 
Lance Roffers said:
You mean like working the opening of the stadium as a member of the athletic department and knowing that the minor league team does not own the stadium and that Missouri State played there before the minor league team even moved to Springfield? You mean like knowing the cages are in the Bill Rowe indoor training facility and not associated with the minor league team?

Also, it’s Hammons Field.
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WIkipedia, and some basic research can save you from a lot of heartache. Hammonds was built with the express purpose of attracting a minor league team to the town. Did I mention that it was paid for by local businessmen, whose primary pitch to justify the park was "The Cardinals are going to move a team here". So, Missouri State gets to play in a stadium that they didn't have to raise a dime to fund, it was built to attract a minor league team, so the facilities are going to be significantly better that the typical college stadium.
 
Lance Roffers said:
You mean like working the opening of the stadium as a member of the athletic department and knowing that the minor league team does not own the stadium and that Missouri State played there before the minor league team even moved to Springfield? You mean like knowing the cages are in the Bill Rowe indoor training facility and not associated with the minor league team?

Also, it’s Hammons Field.
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That makes it even worse, because you know better. You tried to sneak one past the board and now you're on defense after getting called out.

The context of the thread has to do with athletic department revenues relative to athletic facilities. Hammons Field was built privately as part of a downtown development project with the sole purpose of drawing a minor league franchise. The fact that Missouri State paid $0.00 to build that stadium is a pretty important piece of this discussion. But you literally wrote that you were "shocked" that Missouri State plays in a better stadium than Miami, despite knowing full well that it fell into their lap.

It's like being "shocked" that the 1988-89 Miami Hurricanes basketball team had one of the nicest arenas in the country.

This reminds me of last year when you claimed that we should take more pitches when we were facing Jackson Kowar and Brady Singer. Mind blowing.
 
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Canedude08 said:
So in other words, you have no legitimate comeback. Not shocked, it took a cursory google search to punch holes in your garbage comparison.
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Canedude08 said:
WIkipedia, and some basic research can save you from a lot of heartache. Hammonds was built with the express purpose of attracting a minor league team to the town. Did I mention that it was paid for by local businessmen, whose primary pitch to justify the park was "The Cardinals are going to move a team here". So, Missouri State gets to play in a stadium that they didn't have to raise a dime to fund, it was built to attract a minor league team, so the facilities are going to be significantly better that the typical college stadium.
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I’m just not going to spam the board with a debate of Springfield, MO. A place I’ve lived in all my life and know far more about than I ever wanted to know. Hammons was literally a neighbor. My house is like 400’ from his house in the same neighborhood. I spent seven years at the school. I worked in the athletic department when this was built. I’m a season ticket holder. I went to church with the GM of the ML club and know him. I have a good friend on the board of directors for the company who built the stadium. It costs the school FAR more to play at the stadium than it did at their previous stadium.

There is very little about the school I don’t know, but none of that was my point. My point is that a mid-major school with no budget shouldn’t be having better facilities than Miami, which started with batting cages and an indoor practice facility and had little to do with the stadium.

The comment you quoted was simply due to the fact you are just coming across aggressively. But, I’ve spent enough time on it, so feel the way you are going to feel.
 
Lance Roffers said:
My point is that a mid-major school with no budget shouldn’t be having better facilities than Miami, which started with batting cages and an indoor practice facility and had little to do with the stadium.
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Your first post in this thread: "it always shocks me that Missouri State baseball plays in a nicer park than Miami."

So, it was all about the stadium.
 
Lance Roffers said:
I’m just not going to spam the board with a debate of Springfield, MO. A place I’ve lived in all my life and know far more about than I ever wanted to know. Hammons was literally a neighbor. My house is like 400’ from his house in the same neighborhood. I spent seven years at the school. I worked in the athletic department when this was built. I’m a season ticket holder. I went to church with the GM of the ML club and know him. I have a good friend on the board of directors for the company who built the stadium. It costs the school FAR more to play at the stadium than it did at their previous stadium.

There is very little about the school I don’t know, but none of that was my point. My point is that a mid-major school with no budget shouldn’t be having better facilities than Miami, which started with batting cages and an indoor practice facility and had little to do with the stadium.

The comment you quoted was simply due to the fact you are just coming across aggressively. But, I’ve spent enough time on it, so feel the way you are going to feel.
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Am 100% certain that Missouri State has better facilities than UM. No doubt.

UM, however, needs to worry about the schools it competes with for recruits; mainly, FSU and UF. More importantly, UM needs to find a way to recoup the players it loses each year on the tuition differential ($45,724 for Miami and in-state tuition of $6,381 for the enemy).

If UM builds state-of-the-art batting cages and is able to rebuild the Fraser building the stadium debate dies.

Vanderbilt and Rice both raised enough money that it can now offer enough baseball players "full-rides". The problem is that for every baseball scholarship that you fund, you also need to fund a scholarship for a female athlete as well. Each scholarship costs roughly $914,480 to fund and ideally we need another 7.3, which implies $13,351,408 in donations....

Regardless, we made it to Omaha in both 2015 and 2016. USC has not been to Omaha since 2001.........
 
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canesproponent said:
Vanderbilt and Rice both raised enough money that it can now offer enough baseball players "full-rides". The problem is that for every baseball scholarship that you fund, you also need to fund a scholarship for a female athlete as well. Each scholarship costs roughly $914,480 to fund and ideally we need another 7.3, which implies $13,351,408 in donations....
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This is absolutely not true, and I don't know why people try to make stuff up.

An NCAA Division 1 baseball team can provide 11.7 scholarships. Period. End of story. You can raise money to pay for those scholarships, but you cannot raise money to provide more scholarships.
 
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Canedude08 said:
WIkipedia, and some basic research can save you from a lot of heartache. Hammonds was built with the express purpose of attracting a minor league team to the town. Did I mention that it was paid for by local businessmen, whose primary pitch to justify the park was "The Cardinals are going to move a team here". So, Missouri State gets to play in a stadium that they didn't have to raise a dime to fund, it was built to attract a minor league team, so the facilities are going to be significantly better that the typical college stadium.
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Just like Hard Rock. Keep going...
 
Missouri State has 24k students, we have 12k. They aren't that much smaller than we are. Not really making a point except to say that they could potentially have the funds to do whatever they want. They even built their own football stadium! :D I know, it's only 17k seats. But they actually got it done.
We can't even get that done. But we have our own baseball stadium.
Ugh, this is getting circuitous...
 
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Man, I just can’t sleep anymore. Grrr. Missouri State has a better stadium than us and I’m triggered. Man it sucks. If only some NFL team could pay for our football stadium so some other fanbase could collectively circle jerk to it. Wouldn’t that be awesome. Oh wait.
 
QuatroCane said:
****:oops:

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Mississippi State, LSU and the Gamecocks have by far the best stadiums.

We need a new Ron Fraser building and maybe permanent bleachers instead of the ones that we have now.

$20M turns 'Mark Light' into a premier facility.

We also do not compete with Miss State for recruits. Am not too concerned about our stadium. The differential in tuition with UF and FSU is a much bigger threat. Those idiots in FSU crying out "row, row, row your boat" when Cubans bat helps us immensely, though.
 
canesproponent said:
Mississippi State, LSU and the Gamecocks have by far the best stadiums.

We need a new Ron Fraser building and maybe permanent bleachers instead of the ones that we have now.

$20M turns 'Mark Light' into a premier facility.

We also do not compete with Miss State for recruits. Am not too concerned about our stadium. The differential in tuition with UF and FSU is a much bigger threat. Those idiots in FSU crying out "row, row, row your boat" when Cubans bat helps us immensely, though.
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Quit whining about the tuition. Kids want to play for winners, and right now that is Florida.
 
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