... tear down a football stadium to build a basketball arena. Now, we have a slightly above average basketball program that can't, and never has been able to, leverage its facility for recruiting. And you have a rising football program stuck in a rent-a-stadium.
This is why you don't ...
- Thread starter djbpitt
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Good point but one has to remember where Pitt was back in 1996 and where it needed to rebuild Athletics and Pederson looked at the Big East and Basketball was more important in that conference not Football.Pederson had a short term plan not a long term one from the day he came and ignored Pitt & Nebraska Traditions and Alumni to put in his own Consultant's New Age Marketing Payouts, that failed and led to his demise in the end.
Pederson did not know how to rebuild Pitt Football into a Top 25 Program and more importantly had no plans to stay at Pitt anyway. Pederson proved that by going to Nebraska where he could not maintain a Top 25 Football Program for his own Alma Mater? But he helped Nordenberg get Pitt into the ACC and Dixon was an important Adviser doing the same for TCU to join the Big East and then Big-12!
Gallagher, Narduzzi, and Barnes have just been here 2 years and Pitt has only been in the ACC for 3 Years, and all 4 along with New Circle of Pitt Tradition Advisers time to implement their own vision, systems, and establish their Programs.
Dixon leaving to go back to his Alma Mater is what he wanted to do as Pitt is looking for ways to bring back its Alumni to their Alma-Adopted Mater-Mother too. When the New Basketball Coach is selected and approved and wants to be and stay at Pitt to win.
It is time to recognize that Pitt Has So Little Done and So much Still to Do, and walking in the past is no longer important as running and building Pitt Football, Basketball, and Athletics towards the future in the ACC.
It begins with the Chancellor Vision, and Nordenberg's was to rebuild Pitt Athletics and return it to Winning and Nordenberg did it pretty good in my view. Now it is time for Chancellor Gallagher with Narduzzi, Barnes and next Basketball coach to do for the future and Alumni need to return to help it all happen.....just like Dixon is doing at TCU today!
Trust me, if the Pete was never built, we'd be in the AAC right now in ALL sports...
between football and hoops, you choose football every day of the week. But in all fairness, the Pete really has added a lot of value to the campus and the student life.. Hell, the damn racquetball courts in the old days, I'd have to climb over a railing and then down a ladder, and that was in mid 90's. Still cant believe no student killed themselves on that osha nightmare.
I know, racquetball courts for students wasting time between class and happy hour really isn't all that high on priority list but point remains, the pete is a pretty nice university facility..
I know, racquetball courts for students wasting time between class and happy hour really isn't all that high on priority list but point remains, the pete is a pretty nice university facility..
Part of me wants to agree but I do have to say that without the rise in basketball, Pitt would have been left for dead.
What are you talking about? The Pete was built so that students can have state of the art treadmills to run on. No other way Pitt could have gotten those treadmills if not for the Pete. It would have been impossible.
(Sarcasm)
Pitt broke ground on the Pete on June 15, 2000. In the 99-2000 season, Pitt went 13-15 and won 5 conference games. I'm sure the administration at the time was saying "boy, i hope we don't regret building this stadium in 15 years after a coach leaves the program"
I think what I wanted to say, and did a very poor job at, is that the university, athletic dept, is better off with having the pete and the football team playing at Heinz than had they remained with the fieldhouse and fixed up pitt stadium.. that was my point before I got off track talking about how I climbed down a ladder to play racquetball, which no one cares about nor should they..
Yes, yes, yes. But many chose to worship at the throne of Steve Pederson. He lied and I will not forgive him.
It isn't like that was the only option. Pitt was going to build the new arena nearby, and leave Pitt Stadium alone. Then they would have had a new basketball arena the space for a new Pitt stadium.
But... more green space. So it works I guess.
Or, work with the Penguins to move basketball to the Mellon Arena and then the new Hockey Arena. If we are into saving money by not constructing new unnecessary buildings, this would have been the perfect option. They could be playing basketball and football in two state of the art professional arenas without the cost of upkeep, and would have been able to build a new academic related building where Pitt stadium stood without the need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars.
I like pitt stadium as much as you guys but was it worth saving? That was as run down a stadium as you can get.. To turn this thing into anything resembling "state of the art" would have been a major project..
I don't know, far from an expert here but I don't see building the pete as a mistake..
I don't think anyone believes that Pitt Stadium was not in bad shape.
There were rumors of doming the stadium and doing a dual venue. Wonder how far it got. Sounds like a hell of an engineering project though. Imagine making Pitt stadium into an updated dual venu? Domed? Nothing is impossible but that is easily a 9 digit price tag
I was once told when built it was intended to be build on to 90,000 and be Dome when first created CrazyPaco will know the details though? Why they did not build a Syracuse BB/FB Dome Stadium in its place I do not know.
In those days, Stadiums, Baseball parks, BB & Hockey and Altoona BB Park all politically connected and partial funded and BJC and Pitt Pete too.
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They might have chosen a bubble, like the carrier Dome. But that group...Posvar/Bozik, just opted to let the old girl just fall apart. Then Rooney made the decision for Nordenberg & Co.
Another unintended affect was that it doomed us to having "fans" who constantly wallow in self pity and jealousy, but are way smarter than ANYONE that the university has ever employed at any capacity.
Understanding where Pitt has been with views on why is important in context and cannot be changed from Pitt's past.
But looking forward to where Pitt wants to be in the future and how it will get there is now more important for Pitt's future.
Seeing the judgment and hardwork of Chancellor Gallagher, Barnes, and Narduzzi with many people helping achieve that goal is most important for Pitt's present.
All I know It is a very exciting time to be a Pitt Fan and I am going to just sit back and enjoy seeing it develop as it happens and enjoy reading the discussions, arguments, and agreements by the best posters on rivals on the Lair.
Big Things Expected In Pitt Basketball In The ACC And Bigger Accomplishments Of Autumn On The Way To Seeing PITT IS IT Again, In The Sky And National Headlines!
But looking forward to where Pitt wants to be in the future and how it will get there is now more important for Pitt's future.
Seeing the judgment and hardwork of Chancellor Gallagher, Barnes, and Narduzzi with many people helping achieve that goal is most important for Pitt's present.
All I know It is a very exciting time to be a Pitt Fan and I am going to just sit back and enjoy seeing it develop as it happens and enjoy reading the discussions, arguments, and agreements by the best posters on rivals on the Lair.
Big Things Expected In Pitt Basketball In The ACC And Bigger Accomplishments Of Autumn On The Way To Seeing PITT IS IT Again, In The Sky And National Headlines!
There won't be any elaboration. Its just easier to believe that having the Pete is the reason for being in the ACC. It has absolutely nothing to do with location or marker size.
There won't be any elaboration. Its just easier to believe that having the Pete is the reason for being in the ACC. It has absolutely nothing to do with location or marker size.
Was it a guarantee we don't get an ACC invite without the decade of department-wide facility builds and overhauls spurred by jumping on board with Plan B and freeing up $10s of millions in additional state funding for the convocation center? No. Was it likely we'd be in the ACC if we instead singularly focussed on bringing Pitt Stadium up to standard and forgo these other things that were jumpstarted? No.
Give a realistic view of the state of Pitt's athletic department in 1998, and the fact the convocation center project had been languishing for 7 years with severely insufficient funding thanks to deal the O'Conner administration made with the state to take less money up front, ask yourselves how much would a satisfactory renovation of Pitt Stadium cost, and how long would that have taken, including the fundraising phase. How much fundraising for other projects gets deferred? How much less does Pitt get from the state for its other upper campus projects? How much do conference evaluate the overall fit of an athletic department and overall commitments to their departments? How many years behind would Pitt be from where it was in 2011 if Pitt Stadium renovations where the primary focus of that decade?
Neither outcome is a guarantee, but I know there is absolutely no way we'd be in the ACC with the cadre of facilities that we had in 1999. I also know that we weren't in the top 4 most attractive Big East programs for the ACC by 2003 either, and one of those programs was BC.
I've elaborated quite a few times on these points in the past. It is pointless to actually present research numbers and facts, because the many same people in this thread have seen them before and don't like facts, figures, or historical realities that don't fit their personal narratives.
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We would have gotten into the ACC regardless. If Pitt upgrades Pitt Stadium then the basketball team plays in the new arena on the originally proposed site, or they play in the pro arena 1 mile down the road. Either way, Pitt gets an invite.
If Pitt's finances are the top priority and trumps everything else, then I would argue that the better outcome would have been to move both football and basketball off campus, saving PA taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and allowing Pitt to focus on acquiring donations for other academic and athletic endeavors.
To be clear, you are not capable of viewing this situation from my viewpoint, due to you personal connections with the prior administration and their decisions. Same with Souf.
You obviously don't realize, despite this topic having been discussed ad nauseam over the years, that Pitt didn't have enough money to build the proposed convocation center, which would't have been an arena on the scale of the Pete if it had been built, without playing ball with Plan B because the O'Conner administration majority f*ed up taking a lump sum of appropriations for it from the state years before it was a feasible project. That was done to try to jump start the project, because athletic fundraising was so bad, but that effort failed miserably. The successor administration had to crawl back to the legislature and explain why the university had to do what it promised not to, e.g. ask for more money, and why the school had so badly bungled the original deal. Pitt didn't have enough money to do both projects, let alone one. One thing is true, I am incapable of your point of view because it ignores institutional realities and history.
And I was not for tearing down Pitt Stadium at the time. And I still can't play alternative universe scenarios and know for sure how things might have turned out if different decisions were made. However, facts and reality have a funny way of changing people's opinions when people are actually open to them, and it certainly makes the direction that was taken understandable, at a minimum.
Not that it wasn't a very tough decision. Those that don't even concede the significant predicament that the university was in or at least how tough of a decision it was have no flippin' clue about the issue. The fact that you can't even acknowledge the possibility that Pitt would be less attractive to power conferences without all the facility overhauls of the last decade, and how those overhauls may have benefited the athletic programs to begin with, shows me it is worthless having further conversations on this topic.
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Pitt certainly had the money because Pitt ended up paying more for their portion of the Pete than the originally proposed arena (with more seats) was to cost in its entirety.
But you did hit the nail on the head in part of your post with mention of the O'Conner screw up. Pitt is Pitt's own worst enemy, as the events of this weekend demonstrated. It is NOT the fans, but rather the constant, and I do mean constant, shooting themselves in the foot that Pitt is world class at. If only US News and World Report had rankings for that category, Pitt would be #1 almost every year.
There is a reason Pitt has less money to spend on projects... and it is not because of the fans. It is simply because Pitt continues to make easy things look so difficult. It wasn't enough to push long term fans away from the program over a period of decades. Now they are doing it to basketball fans who were huge supporters of the program. Unbelievable.
And to think I actually had hope for the current administration. Thought we were turning a corner.
But you did hit the nail on the head in part of your post with mention of the O'Conner screw up. Pitt is Pitt's own worst enemy, as the events of this weekend demonstrated. It is NOT the fans, but rather the constant, and I do mean constant, shooting themselves in the foot that Pitt is world class at. If only US News and World Report had rankings for that category, Pitt would be #1 almost every year.
There is a reason Pitt has less money to spend on projects... and it is not because of the fans. It is simply because Pitt continues to make easy things look so difficult. It wasn't enough to push long term fans away from the program over a period of decades. Now they are doing it to basketball fans who were huge supporters of the program. Unbelievable.
And to think I actually had hope for the current administration. Thought we were turning a corner.
AMEN! Nordy and Smiley wanted to control all parts of the athletics at Pitt. That's why hoops was made king and Jamie was their lackey.
Kinda makes me wonder... Why not just keep Pitt Stadium and tear down the Field House? Don't know if that was a realistic option or not, but it would've pleased everybody.
CMU wasn't playing G Town and Syracuse. I believe CMU was playing John Carroll and Case Western Reserve.
There is this little problem called inflation.
Using inflation adjusted dollars, one of the original proposed costs of the convocation center circa 1991 was about $46 million of which Pitt originally was looking at $29 million of its own funding. The final cost of about $119 million, of which Pitt was on the hook for for about $41 million by 2002 not counting the initial donations (like the Petersen's). So Pitt's real dollar costs went up only about $12 million when you adjust for inflation, for a much bigger 3-pronged project. Yes, Pitt certainly was just rolling in money. Had to be. All those stats about national lows in ticket and donor revenue were just figments of imagination, especially in the 90s. Had to be.
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To my knowledge the original cost for the Pete was $35 million (or near your $46m figure adjusting for inflation from 91 to 02). Pitt was going to provide $22 million to add to the state's $13 million guaranteed payment. The final cost as your mention was $119, of which the state paid $66 million. So Pitt was responsible for $53 million.
Pitt's cost increased from $22 million in 1992 to $53 million in 2002. Inflation accounts for a small portion of that increase, but most comes from Pitt finding money they previously didn't have. Imagine that.
This is a crazy argument. It is mindbendingly narrow.
Why would anyone presume that if we didn't build The Pete, we would not have improved any of our other athletic facilities? This despite the fact that literally everyone else in the country was doing so? Also, the timeline for this discussion does not begin in 1998, it starts well before that.
Also, why are people in capable of understanding WHY the Pitt fan base has donated so frugally? If you're going to consistently make decisions that make no sense and upset everyone, and you fail to articulate any vision whatsoever, and you are not going to win, OF COURSE people are going to withhold their money. Why the hell should people invest in something so poorly run?
You will note that people are not withholding their money to the university at large. Our university-wide fundraising is comparatively very strong.
That view does not make any sense.
The onus is on Pitt, not its fans.
Just throwing your hands in the air and saying, "Well Pitt fans are cheap, what can you do?" is beyond stupid. That would be like Coke struggling to sell products in Pittsburgh and saying, "What can you do? Pittsburghers obviously don't like pop."
Yes, they do. However, you have to sell it to them. Just wagging your finger at them and telling them they should like it just like everyone else likes it is not a very good strategy.
Why would anyone presume that if we didn't build The Pete, we would not have improved any of our other athletic facilities? This despite the fact that literally everyone else in the country was doing so? Also, the timeline for this discussion does not begin in 1998, it starts well before that.
Also, why are people in capable of understanding WHY the Pitt fan base has donated so frugally? If you're going to consistently make decisions that make no sense and upset everyone, and you fail to articulate any vision whatsoever, and you are not going to win, OF COURSE people are going to withhold their money. Why the hell should people invest in something so poorly run?
You will note that people are not withholding their money to the university at large. Our university-wide fundraising is comparatively very strong.
That view does not make any sense.
The onus is on Pitt, not its fans.
Just throwing your hands in the air and saying, "Well Pitt fans are cheap, what can you do?" is beyond stupid. That would be like Coke struggling to sell products in Pittsburgh and saying, "What can you do? Pittsburghers obviously don't like pop."
Yes, they do. However, you have to sell it to them. Just wagging your finger at them and telling them they should like it just like everyone else likes it is not a very good strategy.
I've always believed that Pitt have have been for the most part frugal - but more than that, they've been prudent in with their athletic contributions.
For a long time, we've been bitching about how poorly that Pitt's AD's have been, and how mismanaged the athletic department has been. If that's true, then why would we want to give 'em even more of our money to misuse?
You used the Coke analogy; I've previously used the restaurant analogy: why would anyone continue to support a restaurant that keeps serving bad food?
I agree, I was just thinking that we could have played there while the demoed the Fitz and rebuilt a new arena there.
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