Rice University Preparing For Major Football Stadium Renovations

YourHoustonNews.com, Adam Coleman

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/atascocita/sports/upgrades-to-football-stadium-among-many-topics-at-rice-athletics/article_49bc5fec-4323-11e1-8eed-0019bb2963f4.html

In a time where the college athletics landscape is drastically changing, Rice University athletic director Rick Greenspan and president David Leebron believe the best input on how to survive it all comes from the community.

That’s what they got Thursday night in Stude Concert Hall in Alice Pratt Brown Hall on campus.

The two conducted an athletics forum that was open to the public to discuss an assortment of topics concerning Rice University athletics, such as the upgrades to Rice Stadium, funding for those upgrades, new sports facilities on campus, the vision for the athletics programs heading into its second century and the university’s place in a college football world run by the Bowl Championship Series.

Maybe the most intriguing part of this forum, though, was the stadium upgrades.

Plans are in place for Rice Stadium to receive major upgrades in a $44.5 million project. The hub of change to Rice Stadium will take place in the south end zone, where the seats currently covered by tarp will be replaced by a new entrance with a Hall of Fame, greenery will be planted for a new picnic area and there will be new concessions, restrooms and ticket windows.

There will also be a new end-zone facility that students, coaches and staff will be able to use. Renderings for the project were shown to the audience. There will be a new tennis facility, too, on the corner of Rice Boulevard and Shepherd Drive. There’s been a lead gift of $3 million for that. The old tennis facility will be cleared for other uses.

The upgrade to the football stadium, however, is the jewel of the new vision for Rice athletics as it completes its first century and enters the next.

“This is the most significant undertaking to address a magnificent stadium, which has gone too long since its revitalization,” Greenspan said during the presentation. “That stadium will benefit from our efforts for many, many years to come.”

One of the many topics Greenspan and Leebron discussed was continuing to put emphasis on being one of the top academic universities in the country, while building the athletic brand.

Greenspan talked about the five pillars that are vital to that goal: strengthening the campus and community, being the top destination for scholar-athletes, transforming those scholar-athletes into tomorrow’s leaders, attracting top-notch coaches and developing a sustainable model of excellence.

Another huge talking point was the BCS and conference realignment in college football. With TCU joining the Big 12 Conference and Houston joining the Big East, Rice will be the only school from the original Southwest Conference that will not be in a one of the six BCS conferences next season. Those conferences allow access to BCS bowls.

The plan for Rice is to simply be patient in a college football landscape that’s constantly changing and to continue to build the program and the brand.

“What we’ve seen is a rush in many cases that San Diego State is now a member of the Big East,” Greenspan said. “You’ve seen Olympic sports and other sports in some ways gutted by this rush to satisfy this branding. It’s not healthy and I think I would be very surprised if in the course of these next six months, we don’t see some dramatic changes to what’s referred to as the BCS.”

Leebron included that the student-athlete often gets bypassed when teams switch conferences or the college football landscape changes. The president said their interests have to be kept in mind as far as when and what time games are for various athletes and how being in a certain conference might affect that.

“The best statement I’ve heard to describe the current situation was we now know that it’s not about the money,” he said. “It’s about how much money. That is not our philosophy. We think our loyalty to our conference is important. We have to look after our own interests, but most important, we have to look at the interest of our scholar-athlete.”

Along with the expectation that the BCS will change to some certain degree soon, Greenspan said there are still productive talks concerning the Conference USA merger with the Mountain West, which gained steam this season. The formation of the two conferences would perhaps make for a formidable conference and one less non-BCS conference.

Another talking point was lack of fan support and creating enthusiasm among the Rice student body for athletics. Greenspan said one of the pillars will help solve that. Strengthening the campus and community and getting athletes even more involved in the community and with the Rice student body will help and give students more incentive to support athletes. He also said a lot of schools, not just Rice, are dealing with that problem.

After Leebron and Greenspan spoke, they opened the floor for questions from student-athletes, professors and alumni.

Steve Lukingbeal, who graduated form Rice in 1976 and played basketball for the Owls, said there were a lot of interesting points in the forum, but of course, there is more to be discovered.

“I think it’s very promising, but we still have a lot of questions to answer,” he said. “I think it’s very intriguing. I came here to find out more about it, but learned more about it, but still have lots of questions.”