SWC75
Bored Historian
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A decade ago this board was full of arguments about SU’s facilities and the degree to which they were responsible for the obvious decline in the program in Paul Pasqualoni’s last years here. I understood the importance of facilities but insisted the University had improved them over the years at regular intervals since they were a real problem back in the 1970’s and that they could hardly explain multiple loses to Rutgers and Temple, who were the dregs of the conference back then, or that a #16 ranked team could lose a game 0-62 or a 14th ranked team could lose a game 0-59.
Once upon a time, back in the one platoon football days, when Ben Schwartzwalder would have a roster of about 60 players and a traveling squad of less than 40, facilities were not so important. Ben never had a significant player who came from outside New York or an adjacent state. All his recruits were aware of the program, that we’d had success here and that he was a good coach. They were either fans of the program or at least had us on their short list from the beginning. Everything changed when two platoon football came in. Teams now have over 100 players and travel more than 80. The average number of players used in a game is 52. You can’t fill those spots just by recruiting kids who grew up as fans of the program. You’ve got to recruit much of the country against all kinds of different schools and you’ve got to wow them with your facilities because the kids will look at them and use them to judge your commitment to winning. I understand that and I think everyone does.
In the 1970’s our facilities were truly at a crisis point. Archbold Stadium should have been replaced after we won the national championship. (Instead they built Manley Field House as an indoor practice facility but it got taken over by the basketball team.) By the 70’s it was nearly as old as the century and the fire department wanted to condemn it. They were persuaded to do so section by section and much of the stadium was roped off by the time I was a student there in the early 709’s. I remember reading that when recruits asked to see the stadium, the coaches would change the subject to something else instead. And I read that we at one point had no weight room. Then they cleared out an office and put some barbells in it and we had a weight room, of sorts. Meanwhile the big state schools, like Penn State, were building up everything using their superior resources. They not only became national recruiters but, with the unlimited scholarships available in those days, recruited everybody they wanted and everybody all their main rivals wanted. Syracuse was unable to compete with that and I spent the 70’s believing that we’d never see a “glory era” here again. In fact, it seemed possible that we might lose the football program altogether.
But the politicians, egged on by the University, finally got their act together and the Carrier Dome became a reality. It represented a commitment to play major college football. Along with it came improvements to other facilities. Every few years thereafter, more new buildings or upgrades of old ones would be announced from time to time. The football program took a while to come back, but it happened and we had another era comparable in success to the Schwartwalder Era, except we were unable to win another national championship. I assumed we were keeping up with or surpassing our rivals in everything needed to support the program.
Then came the decline under Pasqualoni and the assertions that it wasn’t his fault, it was a lack of support from the University, especially the poor facilities, and the resulting debate over what was the real problem. I had to acknowledge that more work on facilities was needed: the “arms race” on facilities had reached new levels nationally and the reconstituted Big East was full of “wannabes” like Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida who, to gain credibility with recruits had build up to their facilities and we were clearly going to lose ground if we didn’t keep moving forward. (that still didn’t explain all the blow-outs and upsets suffered under the Pasqualoni regime).
In debating the issue, I mentioned the story about our first “weight room”. One poster responded by saying that the weight room Greg Robinson inherited was the same one we had under Frank Maloney. I got out the SU yearbooks and Media Guides I’d collected over the years and read the articles on SU’s football facilities and found that was far from true: the weight room had been both moved and expanded multiple times. I made a list of all the facility changes and upgrades that had been done over the years to counter the arguments that nothing had been done and posted it.
Now, in the recent thread about Doug Marrone, I read a similar false assertion: that when Marrone came here “Facilities were a mess and basically hadn’t changed since he left as a player.” Another poster said “We easily had some of the worst facilities for a BCS program.” I guess he was an expert on the facilities of all the other BCS programs. I hate it when baseless assertions like that are injected into arguments. People remember them and think they were true. I think it’s time to again post a time-line of changes and upgrades so that discussions of this sort can have a factual basis.
The first move to bring the program up to date was the building of Coyne Field, next to Manley Field house. It opened in 1975. Of course the biggest move was the tearing down of Archbold Stadium after the 1978 season and the building of the Carrier Dome, which opened in 1980. I remember the first time I ever walked into it. It seemed an awesome place. Now it looks intimate. But it’s still an asset.
The 1982 Yearbook has an article on our weight room at that time. Mike Woicik, our strength and conditioning coach, who later wrote a book on the field and became the S&C guy for the Dallas Cowboy’s Super Bowl winners on the 90’s, is quoted as saying “The administrative support has been great. They’ve expanded the weight room for us, purchased new equipment and supplied us with just about everything we need.” The article says that before Woicik, “there was no one to either design or administer a much needed strength program. In past years, winter was a time when the coaches took to the recruiting trail and athletes were pretty much left on their own. Since Woicik’s arrival, the winter months have produced some of the athlete’s greatest gains in strength….Woicik’s program at Syracuse, barely a fledgling at two years old, has already seen 13 athletes surpass the 400-pound mark for a bench press. And there were several others hovering just below that figure…For years, one of the most respected weight programs in the East has been at the University of Maryland, under the guidance of former coach Jerry Clairborne. In eight years there, Clairborne’s program yielded 20 players who could bench press more than 400 pounds.”
I remember that what brought us back in that era was a hard-hitting defense. The exciting offensive players came later. It wasn’t just attitude or scheme. Woicik’s weight room had a lot to do with that. “I think that the SU coaches understood that in order to be competitive with Penn State, Pittsburgh and some of the other teams on our schedule, we had to step up our efforts in weight training.” The article went on: “-So the commitment was made. Woicik was hired in the summer of 1980. During the following year, the Manley Field House weight room was switched to a much bigger location. More equipment of all types was purchased and put into use. The new equipment included benches, squat racks, Olympic bars and weights. Nautilus machines and wall-mounted pull-up stations. Woicik summed up the new commitment to weight training: ‘What we need, we have. It wasn’t like that two years ago.’”
There’s several pictures of players working with weights. In a couple you can see the background. It’s pretty Spartan-looking with the walls covered with painted concrete blocks, (probably beige) or wall paper with large rectangles in it. It seems pretty dark and unglamorous. It looks like a place where a person would go to lift weights. I’m sure it wouldn’t due for modern recruiting but it was probably state of the art, at least at most schools, at the time. And the results were certainly good. Clearly, Greg Robinson didn’t inherit the same weight room Frank Maloney had. And there were changes to come.
The 1983 Yearbook focuses on Skytop, describing the apartments players live in. Marty Chalk: “You have your own kitchen and bathroom with one or two other guys. Skytop is a great place to live.” It’s nearness to the facilities at Manley is stressed. Mike Woicik’s weight training program was a three day a week program but “Manley’s closeness to the Skytop Apartments makes it possible for the SU players to work out four, five or six days a week.” But much of the article is about academic support. “At 7:15PM, Monday through Thursday during football season, the Orangemen meet at SU’s Ski Lodge, located on South Campus. With the assistance of graduate students, SU football players hit the books for two hours to brush up on skills or iron out difficulties they may have encountered. It’s a structured study situation. For two hours a night, four nights a week, students concentrate on their studies. And Grad assistants, who represent a variety of subjects, are there to assist them. “. A young Don McPherson is shown talking to academic advisor Dick Witham while Tim Green reads a book on the balcony of Hendrick’s Chapel.
The 1984 Yearbook doesn’t really get into facilities but instead has an extensive article and interview with Coach Mac. “His list of pluses is almost endless. He talks about the advantages of being a relatively small, private school and the great testimony of its alumni. There’s SU’s central location, the social life of Marshall Street, the new Schine Center and the campus apartments at Skytop. ‘When you see Syracuse and the Carrier Dome, you know we’ve got a commitment to excellence.” Hyperbole? Maybe but Mac was then recruiting the players who would got 11-0 in 1987 and start a run of 15 consecutive winning seasons. The Schine Center was not strictly a football facility but it’s probably something that recruits would have been shown on a visit.
I don’t have the 1985 or 1986 yearbooks. Doug Marrone’s last year was 1985 so anything created from this point through 2008 was something that had changed since he was a player. The 1987 Yearbook doesn’t have an article about facilities but it does have a photo section, with two pages showing all the sports played at “The Incredible Carrier Dome” and shots of “Magnificent Manley Field House”. The latter shows Woicik in his weight room which appears better lighted than the one in the 1982 yearbook, (it could be that the picture was just better lighted). Everything looks pretty drab and basic but it was certainly functional. There’s a shot of Coyne Field and of Don McPherson and another player at a study table. On the third page of the Manley Field House section it shows “Expanded training and equipment facilities plus a brand-new football locker room” which “were included in the refurbishing of Manley Field House.” The locker room- and this is the one at Manley- is rectangular and very long. The lockers look to be about 3 by 5 feet with an open cabinet and one with a door that can be locked at the top. Again, not glamorous but certainly functional. And it was another year where upgrades had been made.
I don’t have yearbooks for the next two years. Instead I have independent magazines that came out previewing SU football. In ’88 Bob Snyder interviews Coach Mac. “I wouldn’t have come here when Frank Maloney took the job. But now, the support systems are in place. To me, it was very easy for it to happen here. They put up the Carrier Dome. All the talk’s done. It’s done. That’s it!” In another article, (about recruiting), by Phil Grosz he says “It was great that we were able to interest kids as far away as Florida and Detroit. Kids that everyone across the country wanted...I’m still not sure we are in the category of Penn State. But we’ve taken some major steps forward. We signed some great players.” Bob Casullo said “In the past, sometimes we had to switch to plan B before signing date. We took some gambles because we were going after some top kids who were being recruited by the best teams in the country. This year we didn’t have to go to Plan B. We stuck with Plan A all the way.” I guess facilities were not a problem at this point.
The next year Bob Costas interviewed Coach Mac. He asked him to describe the Syracuse program when he arrived there. “Well, you know I started in football when Ben Schwartzwalder was in his heyday. So to be honest with you I was a sentimentalist about it and just thought all we needed was the Carrier Dome. And the program wasn’t in bad shape. With the Carrier Dome and some pretty good recruiting, we were going to be fine. What happened was that we saw a pretty decent football team in our first year and then it dropped off. It was a complete rebuilding job that I didn’t realize that I was getting into when I came aboard. Fortunately, Jake Crouthamel is here. Jake is a former football coach at Dartmouth. He’s the athletic director and he knew the situation and knew what had to be done. So, you know it wasn’t anything that caused any problems from the administration’s standpoint, which I’m tremendously thankful for….From an expansion standpoint, I don’t think we’ve done well. I think that what we’ve done is solidified where we are. And that’s where we really made some inroads. I think we’re one of the top recruiters in the East now. And, having tremendous name recognition nationwide, we’re actually getting kids visiting us from across the nation. But we’re not able to seal the deal, so to speak. And that’s the next level we’re into right now- trying to get young people to commit here.” So SU was still short of becoming a “national recruiter” and moving to “the next level”. But we’d “solidified where we are”.
On another old subject, Costas asked Mac: “Do you find that outside of the immediate Syracuse area, knowledge of the Syracuse tradition had lagged a little bit? When you go and talk to recruits did the names of Jimmy Brown and Floyd Little and Jim Nance and Larry Csonka ring bells with them?” Mac answered “Bob, you know that better than anybody. One of the sad things about athletes and sports is that they have no idea of the statement that fame is fleeting. When it hits them, it’s a terrible thing. So we never really discussed it. But I know that from being in sports is how quickly you’re forgotten. And those names don’t really mean anything. The advantage that we had in that area is the parents and the high school coaches and people of our age who would be remembering the greatness of Syracuse, the Jimmy Browns. So we had to get to them to pass on to the young people the greatness of Syracuse.” Mac is now about to turn 83. The parents and coaches can now tell the young players about Donovan McNabb and Dwight Freeney. I doubt the other names mean much in recruiting any more.
Phil Grosz had another article on recruiting. He described the group recruited after the 11-0 season: “No matter what recruiting analyst you listened to, Syracuse’s class was ranked in the top 12 in the country.” It had three Parade All-Americans: quarterback Wendell Lowery, George Rooks and Garland Hawkins. The next class had only one- Reggie Terry and was not as good but, per Bob Casullo was “solid as we expected.” Interestingly, none of those Parade All-Americans became big stars for the Orange. But others from those classes did- Chris Gedney, Qadry Ismael, David Walker, Glenn Young, Dan Conley, Marvin Graves, Shelby Hill, Kevin Mitchell and Pat O’Neill.
I got another Yearbook in 1990. It has an article called “Colvin Park”, “a complex of new facilities stretching from Manley Field House across green spaces to Lancaster Avenue, Colvin Park will bring football, field hockey and soccer practice fields, updated spectator amenities, a 400 meter track and a new wing for Manley Field House”. The new wing would be completed in 1991 and later be christened the Iocolano-Petty Football Building. A new outdoor track was being built and upgrades for Coyne Field were being planned, as well as the “Ben Schwartzwalder football practice field”, which was being funded by “hundreds of faithful former players”. The total cost of the “Colvin Park Project” was $7 million, “supported by the University and by generous gifts from groups and individuals who value athletics on the college level”. In a separate project the school had built the new Flanagan Gymnasium, with a skywalk connecting it to the old Archbold Gym, with a donation from alum Lora Sulzle Flanagan. Like the Schine center, that was not specifically a football facility but would probably be something new a recruit might be given a look at. The same could be said of the new Ann and Alfred Goldstein Student Center on South Campus, which included some athletic facilities.
I also got one of the SU preview magazines that year. Chris Lindsley interview Coach Mac and asked how Syracuse managed to get both its football and basketball programs ranked in the Top 15. “The Carrier Dome, leadership, Jake Crouthamel. It wasn’t happening before Jake Crouthamel, so I can’t take any credit for it. Jim can’t take any credit for it because he wasn’t there. The administration planned this out and Jake is the one who really planned it out and I think that’s where it happens. What happens is you want to run a program that Dick MacPherson won’t be the program: it will be the support systems within the program that keeps it running….The support systems and the impetus will make every coach look good if he keeps his nose clean.” So I guess Dick felt the football program was being pretty well-supported at that time.
The recruiting article in that magazine talked of how we were stressing recruiting in Florida and came away with Kirby Dar Dar, Tony Jones, Dwayne Joseph, Terry Richardson, (who got #44), and Roy Willis. Super Prep had our class as #14 in the nation.
For 1991 all I got was the preview magazine. It has a lengthy interview with Paul Paqualoni that is mostly about who he is, his background and what it’s been like taking over the head job. At one point, Mark Frank asks him “How do you chip away the Miami armor, or equalize things? Do facilities help attract athletes?” Coach P: “Speed. I think you’ve got to recruit speed. It’s that simple…recruit., That’s how you close the gap and a new facility will certainly help recruiting.” He didn’t elaborate. The new facility might be the Iocolano-Petty Building.
There’s an article called “Beast of the East, suggesting that with Penn State going to the Big Ten, Syracuse might assume their position as the top program in the East. The first of seven different reasons was the Carrier Dome and other SU facilities. Coach P: “it’s allowed us to succeed in recruiting in areas of the country we couldn’t compete before. It’s a first class facility. Even the opposing team has a beautiful dressing room to change in. we fill the place and it’s a great place to watch a college event.” The article adds “Over the summer, Syracuse finished building a state of the art facility that houses a weight room, training rooms, lockers, meeting rooms and coach’s offices.” The other reasons given were that we were one of only two Division 1A schools in the state, (with Army: Buffalo hadn’t revived their program yet); our innovative offense, in which we passed off the option; “bowl credibility: we’d been to four straight; the visibility the success of the basketball program gave us; the history of the program including the tradition of giving top running back prospects #44 and the new Big East football conference.
After that it was all Media Guides: packed with information but lacking depth in any one area: there were no extensive articles or interviews. I got my first one in 1994. It has a section about academic success that discusses the new Academic Support Center at Manley, which has “computer clusters. A library, study areas and tutoring rooms. It’s open early in the morning until late at night for use by all student athletes. In addition to these facilities, the new Manley Football Complex has an auditorium, tutoring rooms and computer clusters exclusively for the use of members of the football team. The Athletic Academic Support Center is staffed by four full-time employees, Academic Coordinator Dick Witham, learning Specialist Terry MacDonald, Academic Counselors Ann Colabuto and Demetrius Marlowe, two graduate assistants and a myriad of specialized tutors. Plans are being made to further expand the staff and facilities.”
The next section shows pictures of the “Manley Football Complex”, (it wasn’t named the Iocolano-Petty Building until 1996). They include a “tremendously expanded weight room” with a large sign “Home of the orange” on the wall, ”increased sports medicine facilities”, (the picture shows a row of examining tables in a large room, and “an academic support complex to meet the student-athletes’ every need”. The new 175 seat auditorium, (will we ever have that m with a glass shield over it with the scores of SU’s bowls games, surrounded by granite blocks with the names of all of SU’s football captains since 1889. There were also new football, lacrosse, soccer and field hockey fields, a 400 meter running track and Coyne Field was renovated with 4500 seats, a press box and a concession area, something that had just been done in 1993. On one page the facilities are described as “one of the nation’s best” and on another “second to none”. That IS hyperbole. But I don’t know if it’s any less accurate than calling SU’s facilities “a mess”.
Jake Crouthamel: “I don’t believe a high school student will come here, look at a new facility and say, ‘This is where I want to go.’ It’s the total substance of the academic program, the tradition and the people that will be the deciding factors. Clearly, however, the football wing is part of the total package- and it adds luster to the package.”
The 1995 Media Guide says “The physical facility at Syracuse University has undergone as many changes as the focus and scope of the program. By the beginning of the new academic year, the space in Manley Field House occupied by the Office of Student Support Services will triple over last year., allowing for increased attention and support of the needs of the student-athlete. Manley Field House was “undergoing a through renovation…This summer’s renovations has seen a new wing for the department’s coaches’ office space going to a massively increased student-athlete’s support services area and expanded offices for a compliance department.”
There were photos of the atrium of the football building “that includes a football Hall of Fame and recruiting gallery. The gallery includes trophies, memorabilia and artifacts of SU’s storied football history.” Also of a rather spare-looking player’s lounge with some comfortable chairs, wooden tables and what appears to be a cabinet for a television but nothing on the walls. The building also contains the auditorium, which is impressive-looking, “recruiting offices, a computer cluster for student athletes, meeting rooms, a video room and the offices of Coach Pasqualoni. The second level is devoted to offices for the assistant coaches and eight team meeting rooms, some of which look down on the entry gallery. The wing also includes a reception area, study lounges and a cafeteria that allows training table meals to be prepared on the site. In addition, the project doubled the size of the weight room, added space to the sports medicine area and created additional locker rooms for SU’s athletic teams. “
1996: The “entire substructure” of Coyne Field was replaced and a new drainage system put in. The capacity of Coyne field was reduced from 4500 to 2700.
1997: The Colvin Park Project was renamed the “Lampe Athletic Complex”. The Media Guide has a better picture of the weight room, which looks about the size of a department store and is brightly lighted.
1998: “The Milton and Ann Stevenson ACES, (“Athlete’s Center for Educational Services”) wing has expanded during the last years, allowing for increased attention and support of the ends of the student athlete.“ The Roy Simmons Sr. Coaches Center, built in 1995, was dedicated this year with offices for 26 head and assistant coaches.
The 1999 Media Guide has a shot of a very different student lounge with much more substantial and elegant looking chairs to sit in and the walls decorated with pictures of our many All-American players. That year Syracuse earned the CHAMPS/Life Skills Program of Excellence Award from the Division 1A Athletic Director’s Association for its Life Skills program that had been started in 1992.
The 2000 Media Guide: “Because of their unique status, football student-athletes have access to a secondary support network within the Athletics Department, housed in the Iocolano and Petty Football Wing….In collaboration with the Stevenson Education Center, the staff monitors the academic progress of each football student-athlete and implements various programs in an effort to teach Life Skills that will lead to the attainment of career goals.
The football locker room was expanded into a 5000 square foot area. “The new design features 110 custom oak lockers with combination seating and storage. The sports medicine training facility was increased to a 2800 square foot area. In addition to spacious treatment, taping and hydrotherapy sections, the training facility includes three whirlpool therapy tubs.“ His name is not mentioned but I assume this was the Donovan McNabb donation.
The next couple of Media Guides just repeat the same words and pictures. The 2002 book adds a quote from Coach P: “Our facilities show that the University has made a great commitment to support the student-athlete.” A pretty general statement but I don’t recall Coach P ever complaining about the facilities himself, not that he would be likely to with his personality. I don’t recall much of any public discussion about facilities until Coach P was fired. That’s when intense debates started on the board about whether his problems were his fault or the University’s fault since, in this particular Universe the school had failed to support him and saddled him with antiquated facilities. But until then, it appeared the school had constantly upgraded their facilities over the years and there was no reason to think there was any problem.
In 2003, the first video boards were installed in the Carrier Dome.
The 2004 Media Guide has a shot from the Stevenson Educational Wing. It appears to be a lounge with comfortable chairs and tables with lamps between them in a large room with a bulletin board and some plaques and pictures along the wall. That might be a pool table in the middle of the room. I do some of my best thinking playing that game, (not my best playing, though). Syracuse was given a trophy for a 100% graduation rate in 2000 by the American Football Coaches Association and “has been recognized” by that organization for its graduation rate 14 times in 18 years.
2005: A new 11,200 square foot, “state of the art” strength and conditioning facility opened. This can be seen on the side of Manley, surrounded by windows. It looks like Star Trek compared to Mike Woicik’s old dungeon. Coyne Field was renovated again with a new artificial surface, “Astro 12”.
I recall during one of Greg Robinson’s first coach’s shows asking him how up-to-date the facilities were at SU, since it had so much discussed in the late Pasqualoni Era. To my surprise, he described them as “tired”. I wondered what was “tired”. The Carrier Dome? Manley, which had undergone various renovations? Was it the 14 year old Iocolano-Petty building? Was it the 10 year old Simmons Coaching Center? Was it the Stevenson Educational center? The chief complaint seemed to be the turf on the practice fields. It was during the Robinson regime that that was replaced with field turf, which is what, I guess, “Astro 12” was.
The 2007 Guide says the practice fields are “both field turf and artificial surface”. It also has another shot of the lounge. Yes, that was a pool table .And it looks like a high-def TV on the wall. Shots of the strength and conditioning wing show that the floors under the weights say “Orange Pride” on what appear to be parquet floors. Much of the equipment is colored orange. There’s a big picture of Dwight Freeney on the wall in the 2008 Media Guide.
It’s at this point that Doug Marrone returned to Syracuse and, according to one poster, found the facilities to be “basically the same” as when he was a player. Except for the Iocolano-Petty Football Building, the Simmons Coaching Center, the Stevenson Atheltic Center, the practice fields with field turf, the huge new strength and conditioning facility, the much-improved locker rooms, etc. etc.
In 2010 I got a yearbook, not a Media Guide. It has a shot of a practice field that obviously has field turf. The caption refers to the Katz and Schwartzwalder practice fields. I don’t know if that means they were both converted at that point. Obviously, at least one of them was. There were more shots of the strength and conditioning facility. It’s got so many pieces of equipment, row after row, that it looks like a store that sells the stuff. Manley Field House was undergoing still another renovation, with artist’s conceptions of a new lobby and exteriors and the football teams practicing on a new practice field. This seems to have been the big issue of the Marrone Era: getting an indoor practice field. Manley Field House was supposed to provide that when it was created in 1962 but it became more of a basketball facility when that sport took off on the hill. Now it was being converted back. One problem: you couldn’t fit 100 yards in it: only 80. I joked that we would wind up being a lousy red zone team because we didn’t have one to practice on. I recall a lengthy thread on the topic where some poster said that most indoor practice facilities don’t have 100 yards, including some used by the pros. It didn’t matter: you don’t have too many plays that need 80 yards to practice. Nevertheless, an indoor practice facility became the new goal for the program’s facilities- one with a 100 yard field in it.
In 2012 we got the new large video boards in the Dome and the ribbon boards surrounding the stadium. There was a renovation of the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex, which included a new aquatic therapy unit “and new modality and rehabilitation units”, as well as a “Hall of Champions” with pillars honoring all of Syracuse’ NCAA championship teams in all sports. It says that both the Schwartzwalder-Katz fields were field turf. There was also a further “locker room complex renovation and upgrade”. An article on the SU athletics website says the sports medicine facility renovation was in 2011 and the 2012 renovation was to the student lounge area, the cafeteria, the auditorium and locker rooms. It was a $7 million project. Dr. Gross: “We see what the Carmelo Anthony Center has done for Syracuse basketball and we believe making these improvements and adding new facilities for football, coupled with the recently renovated Manley indoor practice facility, will take our football program to new heights.” I recall Bud Poliquin describing Dr. Gross giving him a tour of the new set-up and proudly saying that “USC doesn’t have anything like this”.
The 2013 Media Guide has a shot of the latest lockers: large wooden cabinets with a large open space, some hooks, a couple of drawers and above a large storage shelf with a door on it. The sports medicine area is carpeted and has a large sign on the wall saying “SYRACUSE” The strength and conditioning wing looks uplifting, with sunlight pouring through the glass roof. Now we have broken ground for the indoor practice facility, which will cost $13 million and have, presumably, 100 yards.
It seems to me that the university has had an ongoing program of upgrades and new facilities for decades. Every few years, there’s something new. And it’s still going on. What I see in the pictures doesn’t look too bad. If someone thinks this is “a mess”, they have a peculiar definition of a mess. How does it compare to other schools? I don’t know. All we see in news coverage are the schools who have gone “over the top”, such as Tennessee who built something resembling what the CIA might create for the Men in Black to train in, or Oregon , which seems to have constructed a five star hotel for it’s players. I don’t even want to be like those schools. More relevant to our situation is: how do we compare to the schools we recruit against and compete against on the field: the other schools in the ACC and the other schools in the northeast. Some posters have claimed to have seen some of those facilities and said that they are “way better” without specifics. One of the “way betters” was supposed to be Connecticut, where Coaches Pasqualoni and Deleone have had an unsuccessful tenure.
I can’t claim to know where we stand compared to our rivals. I find it hard to believe that recruits find what we have repulsive and that we are unable to compete in this area. I just want the debates on this subject to be objective. There’s a great saying that “you have a right to your own opinion, but not your own facts”. Let’s stop making false statements or vague assertions. If there’s something that needs to be better, just say what it is and what needs to be done.
Once upon a time, back in the one platoon football days, when Ben Schwartzwalder would have a roster of about 60 players and a traveling squad of less than 40, facilities were not so important. Ben never had a significant player who came from outside New York or an adjacent state. All his recruits were aware of the program, that we’d had success here and that he was a good coach. They were either fans of the program or at least had us on their short list from the beginning. Everything changed when two platoon football came in. Teams now have over 100 players and travel more than 80. The average number of players used in a game is 52. You can’t fill those spots just by recruiting kids who grew up as fans of the program. You’ve got to recruit much of the country against all kinds of different schools and you’ve got to wow them with your facilities because the kids will look at them and use them to judge your commitment to winning. I understand that and I think everyone does.
In the 1970’s our facilities were truly at a crisis point. Archbold Stadium should have been replaced after we won the national championship. (Instead they built Manley Field House as an indoor practice facility but it got taken over by the basketball team.) By the 70’s it was nearly as old as the century and the fire department wanted to condemn it. They were persuaded to do so section by section and much of the stadium was roped off by the time I was a student there in the early 709’s. I remember reading that when recruits asked to see the stadium, the coaches would change the subject to something else instead. And I read that we at one point had no weight room. Then they cleared out an office and put some barbells in it and we had a weight room, of sorts. Meanwhile the big state schools, like Penn State, were building up everything using their superior resources. They not only became national recruiters but, with the unlimited scholarships available in those days, recruited everybody they wanted and everybody all their main rivals wanted. Syracuse was unable to compete with that and I spent the 70’s believing that we’d never see a “glory era” here again. In fact, it seemed possible that we might lose the football program altogether.
But the politicians, egged on by the University, finally got their act together and the Carrier Dome became a reality. It represented a commitment to play major college football. Along with it came improvements to other facilities. Every few years thereafter, more new buildings or upgrades of old ones would be announced from time to time. The football program took a while to come back, but it happened and we had another era comparable in success to the Schwartwalder Era, except we were unable to win another national championship. I assumed we were keeping up with or surpassing our rivals in everything needed to support the program.
Then came the decline under Pasqualoni and the assertions that it wasn’t his fault, it was a lack of support from the University, especially the poor facilities, and the resulting debate over what was the real problem. I had to acknowledge that more work on facilities was needed: the “arms race” on facilities had reached new levels nationally and the reconstituted Big East was full of “wannabes” like Connecticut, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida who, to gain credibility with recruits had build up to their facilities and we were clearly going to lose ground if we didn’t keep moving forward. (that still didn’t explain all the blow-outs and upsets suffered under the Pasqualoni regime).
In debating the issue, I mentioned the story about our first “weight room”. One poster responded by saying that the weight room Greg Robinson inherited was the same one we had under Frank Maloney. I got out the SU yearbooks and Media Guides I’d collected over the years and read the articles on SU’s football facilities and found that was far from true: the weight room had been both moved and expanded multiple times. I made a list of all the facility changes and upgrades that had been done over the years to counter the arguments that nothing had been done and posted it.
Now, in the recent thread about Doug Marrone, I read a similar false assertion: that when Marrone came here “Facilities were a mess and basically hadn’t changed since he left as a player.” Another poster said “We easily had some of the worst facilities for a BCS program.” I guess he was an expert on the facilities of all the other BCS programs. I hate it when baseless assertions like that are injected into arguments. People remember them and think they were true. I think it’s time to again post a time-line of changes and upgrades so that discussions of this sort can have a factual basis.
The first move to bring the program up to date was the building of Coyne Field, next to Manley Field house. It opened in 1975. Of course the biggest move was the tearing down of Archbold Stadium after the 1978 season and the building of the Carrier Dome, which opened in 1980. I remember the first time I ever walked into it. It seemed an awesome place. Now it looks intimate. But it’s still an asset.
The 1982 Yearbook has an article on our weight room at that time. Mike Woicik, our strength and conditioning coach, who later wrote a book on the field and became the S&C guy for the Dallas Cowboy’s Super Bowl winners on the 90’s, is quoted as saying “The administrative support has been great. They’ve expanded the weight room for us, purchased new equipment and supplied us with just about everything we need.” The article says that before Woicik, “there was no one to either design or administer a much needed strength program. In past years, winter was a time when the coaches took to the recruiting trail and athletes were pretty much left on their own. Since Woicik’s arrival, the winter months have produced some of the athlete’s greatest gains in strength….Woicik’s program at Syracuse, barely a fledgling at two years old, has already seen 13 athletes surpass the 400-pound mark for a bench press. And there were several others hovering just below that figure…For years, one of the most respected weight programs in the East has been at the University of Maryland, under the guidance of former coach Jerry Clairborne. In eight years there, Clairborne’s program yielded 20 players who could bench press more than 400 pounds.”
I remember that what brought us back in that era was a hard-hitting defense. The exciting offensive players came later. It wasn’t just attitude or scheme. Woicik’s weight room had a lot to do with that. “I think that the SU coaches understood that in order to be competitive with Penn State, Pittsburgh and some of the other teams on our schedule, we had to step up our efforts in weight training.” The article went on: “-So the commitment was made. Woicik was hired in the summer of 1980. During the following year, the Manley Field House weight room was switched to a much bigger location. More equipment of all types was purchased and put into use. The new equipment included benches, squat racks, Olympic bars and weights. Nautilus machines and wall-mounted pull-up stations. Woicik summed up the new commitment to weight training: ‘What we need, we have. It wasn’t like that two years ago.’”
There’s several pictures of players working with weights. In a couple you can see the background. It’s pretty Spartan-looking with the walls covered with painted concrete blocks, (probably beige) or wall paper with large rectangles in it. It seems pretty dark and unglamorous. It looks like a place where a person would go to lift weights. I’m sure it wouldn’t due for modern recruiting but it was probably state of the art, at least at most schools, at the time. And the results were certainly good. Clearly, Greg Robinson didn’t inherit the same weight room Frank Maloney had. And there were changes to come.
The 1983 Yearbook focuses on Skytop, describing the apartments players live in. Marty Chalk: “You have your own kitchen and bathroom with one or two other guys. Skytop is a great place to live.” It’s nearness to the facilities at Manley is stressed. Mike Woicik’s weight training program was a three day a week program but “Manley’s closeness to the Skytop Apartments makes it possible for the SU players to work out four, five or six days a week.” But much of the article is about academic support. “At 7:15PM, Monday through Thursday during football season, the Orangemen meet at SU’s Ski Lodge, located on South Campus. With the assistance of graduate students, SU football players hit the books for two hours to brush up on skills or iron out difficulties they may have encountered. It’s a structured study situation. For two hours a night, four nights a week, students concentrate on their studies. And Grad assistants, who represent a variety of subjects, are there to assist them. “. A young Don McPherson is shown talking to academic advisor Dick Witham while Tim Green reads a book on the balcony of Hendrick’s Chapel.
The 1984 Yearbook doesn’t really get into facilities but instead has an extensive article and interview with Coach Mac. “His list of pluses is almost endless. He talks about the advantages of being a relatively small, private school and the great testimony of its alumni. There’s SU’s central location, the social life of Marshall Street, the new Schine Center and the campus apartments at Skytop. ‘When you see Syracuse and the Carrier Dome, you know we’ve got a commitment to excellence.” Hyperbole? Maybe but Mac was then recruiting the players who would got 11-0 in 1987 and start a run of 15 consecutive winning seasons. The Schine Center was not strictly a football facility but it’s probably something that recruits would have been shown on a visit.
I don’t have the 1985 or 1986 yearbooks. Doug Marrone’s last year was 1985 so anything created from this point through 2008 was something that had changed since he was a player. The 1987 Yearbook doesn’t have an article about facilities but it does have a photo section, with two pages showing all the sports played at “The Incredible Carrier Dome” and shots of “Magnificent Manley Field House”. The latter shows Woicik in his weight room which appears better lighted than the one in the 1982 yearbook, (it could be that the picture was just better lighted). Everything looks pretty drab and basic but it was certainly functional. There’s a shot of Coyne Field and of Don McPherson and another player at a study table. On the third page of the Manley Field House section it shows “Expanded training and equipment facilities plus a brand-new football locker room” which “were included in the refurbishing of Manley Field House.” The locker room- and this is the one at Manley- is rectangular and very long. The lockers look to be about 3 by 5 feet with an open cabinet and one with a door that can be locked at the top. Again, not glamorous but certainly functional. And it was another year where upgrades had been made.
I don’t have yearbooks for the next two years. Instead I have independent magazines that came out previewing SU football. In ’88 Bob Snyder interviews Coach Mac. “I wouldn’t have come here when Frank Maloney took the job. But now, the support systems are in place. To me, it was very easy for it to happen here. They put up the Carrier Dome. All the talk’s done. It’s done. That’s it!” In another article, (about recruiting), by Phil Grosz he says “It was great that we were able to interest kids as far away as Florida and Detroit. Kids that everyone across the country wanted...I’m still not sure we are in the category of Penn State. But we’ve taken some major steps forward. We signed some great players.” Bob Casullo said “In the past, sometimes we had to switch to plan B before signing date. We took some gambles because we were going after some top kids who were being recruited by the best teams in the country. This year we didn’t have to go to Plan B. We stuck with Plan A all the way.” I guess facilities were not a problem at this point.
The next year Bob Costas interviewed Coach Mac. He asked him to describe the Syracuse program when he arrived there. “Well, you know I started in football when Ben Schwartzwalder was in his heyday. So to be honest with you I was a sentimentalist about it and just thought all we needed was the Carrier Dome. And the program wasn’t in bad shape. With the Carrier Dome and some pretty good recruiting, we were going to be fine. What happened was that we saw a pretty decent football team in our first year and then it dropped off. It was a complete rebuilding job that I didn’t realize that I was getting into when I came aboard. Fortunately, Jake Crouthamel is here. Jake is a former football coach at Dartmouth. He’s the athletic director and he knew the situation and knew what had to be done. So, you know it wasn’t anything that caused any problems from the administration’s standpoint, which I’m tremendously thankful for….From an expansion standpoint, I don’t think we’ve done well. I think that what we’ve done is solidified where we are. And that’s where we really made some inroads. I think we’re one of the top recruiters in the East now. And, having tremendous name recognition nationwide, we’re actually getting kids visiting us from across the nation. But we’re not able to seal the deal, so to speak. And that’s the next level we’re into right now- trying to get young people to commit here.” So SU was still short of becoming a “national recruiter” and moving to “the next level”. But we’d “solidified where we are”.
On another old subject, Costas asked Mac: “Do you find that outside of the immediate Syracuse area, knowledge of the Syracuse tradition had lagged a little bit? When you go and talk to recruits did the names of Jimmy Brown and Floyd Little and Jim Nance and Larry Csonka ring bells with them?” Mac answered “Bob, you know that better than anybody. One of the sad things about athletes and sports is that they have no idea of the statement that fame is fleeting. When it hits them, it’s a terrible thing. So we never really discussed it. But I know that from being in sports is how quickly you’re forgotten. And those names don’t really mean anything. The advantage that we had in that area is the parents and the high school coaches and people of our age who would be remembering the greatness of Syracuse, the Jimmy Browns. So we had to get to them to pass on to the young people the greatness of Syracuse.” Mac is now about to turn 83. The parents and coaches can now tell the young players about Donovan McNabb and Dwight Freeney. I doubt the other names mean much in recruiting any more.
Phil Grosz had another article on recruiting. He described the group recruited after the 11-0 season: “No matter what recruiting analyst you listened to, Syracuse’s class was ranked in the top 12 in the country.” It had three Parade All-Americans: quarterback Wendell Lowery, George Rooks and Garland Hawkins. The next class had only one- Reggie Terry and was not as good but, per Bob Casullo was “solid as we expected.” Interestingly, none of those Parade All-Americans became big stars for the Orange. But others from those classes did- Chris Gedney, Qadry Ismael, David Walker, Glenn Young, Dan Conley, Marvin Graves, Shelby Hill, Kevin Mitchell and Pat O’Neill.
I got another Yearbook in 1990. It has an article called “Colvin Park”, “a complex of new facilities stretching from Manley Field House across green spaces to Lancaster Avenue, Colvin Park will bring football, field hockey and soccer practice fields, updated spectator amenities, a 400 meter track and a new wing for Manley Field House”. The new wing would be completed in 1991 and later be christened the Iocolano-Petty Football Building. A new outdoor track was being built and upgrades for Coyne Field were being planned, as well as the “Ben Schwartzwalder football practice field”, which was being funded by “hundreds of faithful former players”. The total cost of the “Colvin Park Project” was $7 million, “supported by the University and by generous gifts from groups and individuals who value athletics on the college level”. In a separate project the school had built the new Flanagan Gymnasium, with a skywalk connecting it to the old Archbold Gym, with a donation from alum Lora Sulzle Flanagan. Like the Schine center, that was not specifically a football facility but would probably be something new a recruit might be given a look at. The same could be said of the new Ann and Alfred Goldstein Student Center on South Campus, which included some athletic facilities.
I also got one of the SU preview magazines that year. Chris Lindsley interview Coach Mac and asked how Syracuse managed to get both its football and basketball programs ranked in the Top 15. “The Carrier Dome, leadership, Jake Crouthamel. It wasn’t happening before Jake Crouthamel, so I can’t take any credit for it. Jim can’t take any credit for it because he wasn’t there. The administration planned this out and Jake is the one who really planned it out and I think that’s where it happens. What happens is you want to run a program that Dick MacPherson won’t be the program: it will be the support systems within the program that keeps it running….The support systems and the impetus will make every coach look good if he keeps his nose clean.” So I guess Dick felt the football program was being pretty well-supported at that time.
The recruiting article in that magazine talked of how we were stressing recruiting in Florida and came away with Kirby Dar Dar, Tony Jones, Dwayne Joseph, Terry Richardson, (who got #44), and Roy Willis. Super Prep had our class as #14 in the nation.
For 1991 all I got was the preview magazine. It has a lengthy interview with Paul Paqualoni that is mostly about who he is, his background and what it’s been like taking over the head job. At one point, Mark Frank asks him “How do you chip away the Miami armor, or equalize things? Do facilities help attract athletes?” Coach P: “Speed. I think you’ve got to recruit speed. It’s that simple…recruit., That’s how you close the gap and a new facility will certainly help recruiting.” He didn’t elaborate. The new facility might be the Iocolano-Petty Building.
There’s an article called “Beast of the East, suggesting that with Penn State going to the Big Ten, Syracuse might assume their position as the top program in the East. The first of seven different reasons was the Carrier Dome and other SU facilities. Coach P: “it’s allowed us to succeed in recruiting in areas of the country we couldn’t compete before. It’s a first class facility. Even the opposing team has a beautiful dressing room to change in. we fill the place and it’s a great place to watch a college event.” The article adds “Over the summer, Syracuse finished building a state of the art facility that houses a weight room, training rooms, lockers, meeting rooms and coach’s offices.” The other reasons given were that we were one of only two Division 1A schools in the state, (with Army: Buffalo hadn’t revived their program yet); our innovative offense, in which we passed off the option; “bowl credibility: we’d been to four straight; the visibility the success of the basketball program gave us; the history of the program including the tradition of giving top running back prospects #44 and the new Big East football conference.
After that it was all Media Guides: packed with information but lacking depth in any one area: there were no extensive articles or interviews. I got my first one in 1994. It has a section about academic success that discusses the new Academic Support Center at Manley, which has “computer clusters. A library, study areas and tutoring rooms. It’s open early in the morning until late at night for use by all student athletes. In addition to these facilities, the new Manley Football Complex has an auditorium, tutoring rooms and computer clusters exclusively for the use of members of the football team. The Athletic Academic Support Center is staffed by four full-time employees, Academic Coordinator Dick Witham, learning Specialist Terry MacDonald, Academic Counselors Ann Colabuto and Demetrius Marlowe, two graduate assistants and a myriad of specialized tutors. Plans are being made to further expand the staff and facilities.”
The next section shows pictures of the “Manley Football Complex”, (it wasn’t named the Iocolano-Petty Building until 1996). They include a “tremendously expanded weight room” with a large sign “Home of the orange” on the wall, ”increased sports medicine facilities”, (the picture shows a row of examining tables in a large room, and “an academic support complex to meet the student-athletes’ every need”. The new 175 seat auditorium, (will we ever have that m with a glass shield over it with the scores of SU’s bowls games, surrounded by granite blocks with the names of all of SU’s football captains since 1889. There were also new football, lacrosse, soccer and field hockey fields, a 400 meter running track and Coyne Field was renovated with 4500 seats, a press box and a concession area, something that had just been done in 1993. On one page the facilities are described as “one of the nation’s best” and on another “second to none”. That IS hyperbole. But I don’t know if it’s any less accurate than calling SU’s facilities “a mess”.
Jake Crouthamel: “I don’t believe a high school student will come here, look at a new facility and say, ‘This is where I want to go.’ It’s the total substance of the academic program, the tradition and the people that will be the deciding factors. Clearly, however, the football wing is part of the total package- and it adds luster to the package.”
The 1995 Media Guide says “The physical facility at Syracuse University has undergone as many changes as the focus and scope of the program. By the beginning of the new academic year, the space in Manley Field House occupied by the Office of Student Support Services will triple over last year., allowing for increased attention and support of the needs of the student-athlete. Manley Field House was “undergoing a through renovation…This summer’s renovations has seen a new wing for the department’s coaches’ office space going to a massively increased student-athlete’s support services area and expanded offices for a compliance department.”
There were photos of the atrium of the football building “that includes a football Hall of Fame and recruiting gallery. The gallery includes trophies, memorabilia and artifacts of SU’s storied football history.” Also of a rather spare-looking player’s lounge with some comfortable chairs, wooden tables and what appears to be a cabinet for a television but nothing on the walls. The building also contains the auditorium, which is impressive-looking, “recruiting offices, a computer cluster for student athletes, meeting rooms, a video room and the offices of Coach Pasqualoni. The second level is devoted to offices for the assistant coaches and eight team meeting rooms, some of which look down on the entry gallery. The wing also includes a reception area, study lounges and a cafeteria that allows training table meals to be prepared on the site. In addition, the project doubled the size of the weight room, added space to the sports medicine area and created additional locker rooms for SU’s athletic teams. “
1996: The “entire substructure” of Coyne Field was replaced and a new drainage system put in. The capacity of Coyne field was reduced from 4500 to 2700.
1997: The Colvin Park Project was renamed the “Lampe Athletic Complex”. The Media Guide has a better picture of the weight room, which looks about the size of a department store and is brightly lighted.
1998: “The Milton and Ann Stevenson ACES, (“Athlete’s Center for Educational Services”) wing has expanded during the last years, allowing for increased attention and support of the ends of the student athlete.“ The Roy Simmons Sr. Coaches Center, built in 1995, was dedicated this year with offices for 26 head and assistant coaches.
The 1999 Media Guide has a shot of a very different student lounge with much more substantial and elegant looking chairs to sit in and the walls decorated with pictures of our many All-American players. That year Syracuse earned the CHAMPS/Life Skills Program of Excellence Award from the Division 1A Athletic Director’s Association for its Life Skills program that had been started in 1992.
The 2000 Media Guide: “Because of their unique status, football student-athletes have access to a secondary support network within the Athletics Department, housed in the Iocolano and Petty Football Wing….In collaboration with the Stevenson Education Center, the staff monitors the academic progress of each football student-athlete and implements various programs in an effort to teach Life Skills that will lead to the attainment of career goals.
The football locker room was expanded into a 5000 square foot area. “The new design features 110 custom oak lockers with combination seating and storage. The sports medicine training facility was increased to a 2800 square foot area. In addition to spacious treatment, taping and hydrotherapy sections, the training facility includes three whirlpool therapy tubs.“ His name is not mentioned but I assume this was the Donovan McNabb donation.
The next couple of Media Guides just repeat the same words and pictures. The 2002 book adds a quote from Coach P: “Our facilities show that the University has made a great commitment to support the student-athlete.” A pretty general statement but I don’t recall Coach P ever complaining about the facilities himself, not that he would be likely to with his personality. I don’t recall much of any public discussion about facilities until Coach P was fired. That’s when intense debates started on the board about whether his problems were his fault or the University’s fault since, in this particular Universe the school had failed to support him and saddled him with antiquated facilities. But until then, it appeared the school had constantly upgraded their facilities over the years and there was no reason to think there was any problem.
In 2003, the first video boards were installed in the Carrier Dome.
The 2004 Media Guide has a shot from the Stevenson Educational Wing. It appears to be a lounge with comfortable chairs and tables with lamps between them in a large room with a bulletin board and some plaques and pictures along the wall. That might be a pool table in the middle of the room. I do some of my best thinking playing that game, (not my best playing, though). Syracuse was given a trophy for a 100% graduation rate in 2000 by the American Football Coaches Association and “has been recognized” by that organization for its graduation rate 14 times in 18 years.
2005: A new 11,200 square foot, “state of the art” strength and conditioning facility opened. This can be seen on the side of Manley, surrounded by windows. It looks like Star Trek compared to Mike Woicik’s old dungeon. Coyne Field was renovated again with a new artificial surface, “Astro 12”.
I recall during one of Greg Robinson’s first coach’s shows asking him how up-to-date the facilities were at SU, since it had so much discussed in the late Pasqualoni Era. To my surprise, he described them as “tired”. I wondered what was “tired”. The Carrier Dome? Manley, which had undergone various renovations? Was it the 14 year old Iocolano-Petty building? Was it the 10 year old Simmons Coaching Center? Was it the Stevenson Educational center? The chief complaint seemed to be the turf on the practice fields. It was during the Robinson regime that that was replaced with field turf, which is what, I guess, “Astro 12” was.
The 2007 Guide says the practice fields are “both field turf and artificial surface”. It also has another shot of the lounge. Yes, that was a pool table .And it looks like a high-def TV on the wall. Shots of the strength and conditioning wing show that the floors under the weights say “Orange Pride” on what appear to be parquet floors. Much of the equipment is colored orange. There’s a big picture of Dwight Freeney on the wall in the 2008 Media Guide.
It’s at this point that Doug Marrone returned to Syracuse and, according to one poster, found the facilities to be “basically the same” as when he was a player. Except for the Iocolano-Petty Football Building, the Simmons Coaching Center, the Stevenson Atheltic Center, the practice fields with field turf, the huge new strength and conditioning facility, the much-improved locker rooms, etc. etc.
In 2010 I got a yearbook, not a Media Guide. It has a shot of a practice field that obviously has field turf. The caption refers to the Katz and Schwartzwalder practice fields. I don’t know if that means they were both converted at that point. Obviously, at least one of them was. There were more shots of the strength and conditioning facility. It’s got so many pieces of equipment, row after row, that it looks like a store that sells the stuff. Manley Field House was undergoing still another renovation, with artist’s conceptions of a new lobby and exteriors and the football teams practicing on a new practice field. This seems to have been the big issue of the Marrone Era: getting an indoor practice field. Manley Field House was supposed to provide that when it was created in 1962 but it became more of a basketball facility when that sport took off on the hill. Now it was being converted back. One problem: you couldn’t fit 100 yards in it: only 80. I joked that we would wind up being a lousy red zone team because we didn’t have one to practice on. I recall a lengthy thread on the topic where some poster said that most indoor practice facilities don’t have 100 yards, including some used by the pros. It didn’t matter: you don’t have too many plays that need 80 yards to practice. Nevertheless, an indoor practice facility became the new goal for the program’s facilities- one with a 100 yard field in it.
In 2012 we got the new large video boards in the Dome and the ribbon boards surrounding the stadium. There was a renovation of the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex, which included a new aquatic therapy unit “and new modality and rehabilitation units”, as well as a “Hall of Champions” with pillars honoring all of Syracuse’ NCAA championship teams in all sports. It says that both the Schwartzwalder-Katz fields were field turf. There was also a further “locker room complex renovation and upgrade”. An article on the SU athletics website says the sports medicine facility renovation was in 2011 and the 2012 renovation was to the student lounge area, the cafeteria, the auditorium and locker rooms. It was a $7 million project. Dr. Gross: “We see what the Carmelo Anthony Center has done for Syracuse basketball and we believe making these improvements and adding new facilities for football, coupled with the recently renovated Manley indoor practice facility, will take our football program to new heights.” I recall Bud Poliquin describing Dr. Gross giving him a tour of the new set-up and proudly saying that “USC doesn’t have anything like this”.
The 2013 Media Guide has a shot of the latest lockers: large wooden cabinets with a large open space, some hooks, a couple of drawers and above a large storage shelf with a door on it. The sports medicine area is carpeted and has a large sign on the wall saying “SYRACUSE” The strength and conditioning wing looks uplifting, with sunlight pouring through the glass roof. Now we have broken ground for the indoor practice facility, which will cost $13 million and have, presumably, 100 yards.
It seems to me that the university has had an ongoing program of upgrades and new facilities for decades. Every few years, there’s something new. And it’s still going on. What I see in the pictures doesn’t look too bad. If someone thinks this is “a mess”, they have a peculiar definition of a mess. How does it compare to other schools? I don’t know. All we see in news coverage are the schools who have gone “over the top”, such as Tennessee who built something resembling what the CIA might create for the Men in Black to train in, or Oregon , which seems to have constructed a five star hotel for it’s players. I don’t even want to be like those schools. More relevant to our situation is: how do we compare to the schools we recruit against and compete against on the field: the other schools in the ACC and the other schools in the northeast. Some posters have claimed to have seen some of those facilities and said that they are “way better” without specifics. One of the “way betters” was supposed to be Connecticut, where Coaches Pasqualoni and Deleone have had an unsuccessful tenure.
I can’t claim to know where we stand compared to our rivals. I find it hard to believe that recruits find what we have repulsive and that we are unable to compete in this area. I just want the debates on this subject to be objective. There’s a great saying that “you have a right to your own opinion, but not your own facts”. Let’s stop making false statements or vague assertions. If there’s something that needs to be better, just say what it is and what needs to be done.
