BOTH Adams Center Replacement

[Grizfan-24]

The overarching problem for the University of Montana in regards to athletics, is they have probably close to a billion in capital projects they want to do and no underlying revenue stream to make it happen. Having a few friends and former colleagues who have all dabbled at the D1 level in different sports as coaches or as officials, it is hard to understate how massive the gap is in facilities management. If Arizona or Florida or Iowa want new restroom facilities or concession concourses for their softball programs, there is no capital campaign, just a line item budget request and it gets done. Maybe in a year, but not 5 years of capital raising and execution of the project. Took about that long for the Bubble to get done, similar timelines for the Champions center, and so forth. Efficiency in terms of time hasn't been the model to get these capital projects done at the UM at generally it is the norm for schools of their size.

I know that is an apples to oranges comparison, but it points out the triage system the UM has to adopt when it comes to how it spends its money within the athletic department on infrastructure. Like all college programs they have to depend on private donors and unlike larger schools to fund infrastructure improvement and it isn't a constant flow of money. Most of the time they are one time donations or gifts that have a short lifetime on their value. Those GSA gifts go alot longer when it is tied to people and personnel and not building stuff.

One of the reasons that Hogan and then O'Day pushed so heavily to expand WaGriz was because of its down stream economic impact on the rest of the athletic department. Much to the chagrin of certain athletic department coaches, who felt (rather vocally) that Football got preferential treatment to the detriment of other programs. Not sure how much of that sentiment exists anymore but it was very prevalent in the 2000's. But Montana can do a lot of those capital infrastructure projects because the department isn't hamstrung by zero revenue football.

From what I have heard is that Shinn and Haslam are in agreement on infrastructure improvements of athletic facilities as a part of the larger public facing UM mission, and from what I gather is that Shinn will be a good friend to the athletic department. Bodnar did will to help repair the broken relationship between Main Hall and the athletic department, I think Shinn will help the athletic department overcome some the institutional hurdles that became common place over the past 20 years and get some of these capital infrastructure projects completed or at least off the planning board.

 

[MontanaGrizSoccer]

The overarching problem for the University of Montana in regards to athletics, is they have probably close to a billion in capital projects they want to do and no underlying revenue stream to make it happen. Having a few friends and former colleagues who have all dabbled at the D1 level in different sports as coaches or as officials, it is hard to understate how massive the gap is in facilities management. If Arizona or Florida or Iowa want new restroom facilities or concession concourses for their softball programs, there is no capital campaign, just a line item budget request and it gets done. Maybe in a year, but not 5 years of capital raising and execution of the project. Took about that long for the Bubble to get done, similar timelines for the Champions center, and so forth. Efficiency in terms of time hasn't been the model to get these capital projects done at the UM at generally it is the norm for schools of their size.

I know that is an apples to oranges comparison, but it points out the triage system the UM has to adopt when it comes to how it spends its money within the athletic department on infrastructure. Like all college programs they have to depend on private donors and unlike larger schools to fund infrastructure improvement and it isn't a constant flow of money. Most of the time they are one time donations or gifts that have a short lifetime on their value. Those GSA gifts go alot longer when it is tied to people and personnel and not building stuff.

One of the reasons that Hogan and then O'Day pushed so heavily to expand WaGriz was because of its down stream economic impact on the rest of the athletic department. Much to the chagrin of certain athletic department coaches, who felt (rather vocally) that Football got preferential treatment to the detriment of other programs. Not sure how much of that sentiment exists anymore but it was very prevalent in the 2000's. But Montana can do a lot of those capital infrastructure projects because the department isn't hamstrung by zero revenue football.

From what I have heard is that Shinn and Haslam are in agreement on infrastructure improvements of athletic facilities as a part of the larger public facing UM mission, and from what I gather is that Shinn will be a good friend to the athletic department. Bodnar did will to help repair the broken relationship between Main Hall and the athletic department, I think Shinn will help the athletic department overcome some the institutional hurdles that became common place over the past 20 years and get some of these capital infrastructure projects completed or at least off the planning board.

One of the better explanations on this board, thank you.

 

[Griz til I die]

The overarching problem for the University of Montana in regards to athletics, is they have probably close to a billion in capital projects they want to do and no underlying revenue stream to make it happen. Having a few friends and former colleagues who have all dabbled at the D1 level in different sports as coaches or as officials, it is hard to understate how massive the gap is in facilities management. If Arizona or Florida or Iowa want new restroom facilities or concession concourses for their softball programs, there is no capital campaign, just a line item budget request and it gets done. Maybe in a year, but not 5 years of capital raising and execution of the project. Took about that long for the Bubble to get done, similar timelines for the Champions center, and so forth. Efficiency in terms of time hasn't been the model to get these capital projects done at the UM at generally it is the norm for schools of their size.

I know that is an apples to oranges comparison, but it points out the triage system the UM has to adopt when it comes to how it spends its money within the athletic department on infrastructure. Like all college programs they have to depend on private donors and unlike larger schools to fund infrastructure improvement and it isn't a constant flow of money. Most of the time they are one time donations or gifts that have a short lifetime on their value. Those GSA gifts go alot longer when it is tied to people and personnel and not building stuff.

One of the reasons that Hogan and then O'Day pushed so heavily to expand WaGriz was because of its down stream economic impact on the rest of the athletic department. Much to the chagrin of certain athletic department coaches, who felt (rather vocally) that Football got preferential treatment to the detriment of other programs. Not sure how much of that sentiment exists anymore but it was very prevalent in the 2000's. But Montana can do a lot of those capital infrastructure projects because the department isn't hamstrung by zero revenue football.

From what I have heard is that Shinn and Haslam are in agreement on infrastructure improvements of athletic facilities as a part of the larger public facing UM mission, and from what I gather is that Shinn will be a good friend to the athletic department. Bodnar did will to help repair the broken relationship between Main Hall and the athletic department, I think Shinn will help the athletic department overcome some the institutional hurdles that became common place over the past 20 years and get some of these capital infrastructure projects completed or at least off the planning board.

Thanks for the update GF24! I left Shinn a question on Twitter about this very topic that I assume he answered last night on the Griz Fan Pod. I'll await the release of the pod and report back!

 

[Grizfan-24]

Chris Citowicki was spot on about facilities. As coaches at any level of high school or college, you just learn to make do. Unless someone has a master plan and pairs it with people who want to make it happen, that stuff just sits on the planning board forever (see what happened at MSU w/ Cruzado and company).

This is how the women's soccer program has been using a former equipment shed (a bit of hyperbole) as a locker room for 20 years. It isn't publicly visible and programs just get told to deal with it. If you want to fix it, you have to come up with the funding itself and the problem is everything that I described above.

Most colleges and high schools treat athletic facilities as a one time sunk cost and it is essentially build it, shut them up and forget it. I do think as the UM struggled with enrollment for a decade, it became much easier for main hall to flatly say no to University funded projects for athletics. As such there has been a lot of deferred maintenance that has to happen over the next decade that will put a lot more of the shiny adds to facilities that people might want. Regardless is has put more of the onus on Haslam or individual coaches to privately fund and that has been a historic problem in cultivating large amounts of yearly giving to the athletic department and not ear marked for uber specific things.