Kill: Biggest story is that we’re eating in a hallway right now & competing for div

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Kill: Biggest story is that we’re eating in a hallway right now & competing for div

per the STrib:

Lobbying for facility

While reflecting on how far his program has come in four years, Kill said, “We’re not there yet. You know, we’re not.”

Kill said success has helped the Gophers recruit better players but noted the importance of getting a new training facility. The current one, built in 1985, is widely considered the worst in the Big Ten.

While Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and other schools have built nutrition centers that could pass as three-star restaurants, the Gophers still hold team meals in the lobby of their football complex.

“The biggest story of all is that we’re eating in a hallway right now, and we’re competing for the championship of our division,” he said. “That is unbelievable.”

The athletic department is working to raise funds for a $190 million training facility for several sports teams, and football is the main priority. Land O’Lakes pledged $21 million toward the project as part of a $25 million gift to the university in September.

Kill said he’s pushing to have ground broken on the new football facility in April.

“Like we told our recruits, ‘We’ll get this thing, get the shovel in the ground quickly, certainly before the summer is out,’ ” Kill said. “That’s the stride that we’ve been missing that we’ve had to overcome.”

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/283653561.html

Go Gophers!!
 

Kill definitely understands the concept of striking while the iron is hot. Comments like these when the team is winning will get people on his side about the need for better facilities. These same comments when the team is losing would be met with ridicule by a lot. Smart move on his part to bang the facilities drum as much as possible right now while people are happy with the direction of the program.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Kill definitely understands the concept of striking while the iron is hot. Comments like these when the team is winning will get people on his side about the need for better facilities. These same comments when the team is losing would be met with ridicule by a lot. Smart move on his part to bang the facilities drum as much as possible right now while people are happy with the direction of the program.
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Facilities are coming.
 


Yes, he is smart and if he did not bang the drum now I would be disappointed. We need more corporations to step up. Its been a generation since the football team has generated this much interest. The new stadium was a start (Thanks again TCF Bank for the contribution!!!!!) we now need the rest of the facilities upgraded to continue the momentum. I recently saw the Oregon Ducks facilities and they are off the charts awesome; dining center, training facilities, etc.
 


watertown 1987 guy n said:
Yes, he is smart and if he did not bang the drum now I would be disappointed. We need more corporations to step up. Its been a generation since the football team has generated this much interest. The new stadium was a start (Thanks again TCF Bank for the contribution!!!!!) we now need the rest of the facilities upgraded to continue the momentum. I recently saw the Oregon Ducks facilities and they are off the charts awesome; dining center, training facilities, etc.
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We definitely need a facilities upgrade but we should never try and compare ours with anything Oregon has because they have all that Nike money.
 

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Go Gophers!!
 

MNVCGUY said:
We definitely need a facilities upgrade but we should never try and compare ours with anything Oregon has because they have all that Nike money.
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Unless, I am mistaken I don't believe he compared our facility plans and Oregon's facilities anywhere in his post.
 

MNVCGUY said:
We definitely need a facilities upgrade but we should never try and compare ours with anything Oregon has because they have all that Nike money.
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Why shouldn't we compare ourselves? I think many of your posts have a tendency to do just that. Didn't we lose Seth Green to Oregon? Given your disdain for all the QBs on our roster and blaming our coaching staff for their inability to put one on the field that meets your approval, I'd say finding out why Green chose to leave is worth exploring.
 



MNVCGUY said:
We definitely need a facilities upgrade but we should never try and compare ours with anything Oregon has because they have all that Nike money.
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Don't take this personally, but we need to avoid the humble "midwestern pocketbook" mentality. The one that originally built a Metrodome with no A/C because the dome was meant to "get people in, let 'em see the game, and get 'em home."

Minnesotans are so cheap. And I am one of them. And I am cheap.

I'm glad Kill and Norwood are not from MN.

We need to reach big.
 

killme said:
Why shouldn't we compare ourselves? I think many of your posts have a tendency to do just that. Didn't we lose Seth Green to Oregon? Given your disdain for all the QBs on our roster and blaming our coaching staff for their inability to put one on the field that meets your approval, I'd say finding out why Green chose to leave is worth exploring.
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Well that came out of nowhere.....my point was that drooling over Oregon level facilities is pointless because we don't have the kind of financial backing to come up with facilities anywhere close to what they have. As I told Killjoy in another thread feel free to ignore me if you are going to get this ticked off at any comment I make and just leap to the conclusion that it was somehow a shot at the program (which it wasn't). We need upgrades and the U has a plan in place to make upgrades to our facilities but they aren't going to be in the same league as Oregon because we don't have the Nike money that flows into that place to go over the top on pretty much anything they do.
 

It really sucks that we are still dealing with this issue now that we are finally relevant again. The two things that always came in the way of our recruiting was our on-field success and our facilities, and now that we are finally winning, we can't really capitalize on it in recruiting because our facilities are still so tough to overcome. Now, I don't want to get in another one of our fun star-rating arguments on here, and I think Jerry has done a great job building up the recruits we have gotten so far. However, how nice would it be if he could land more of his "first choices" like Seth Green, Grant Schmidt, etc.? Now that we are good again, one of the only things coming in the way of us sustaining our success through recruiting is our facilities and the issue is still unsolved (kind of).
 

Simple: if you want Kill to come back then get him his facilities.
 




When doing well is definitely the right time to lobby for facilities. I'd much rather hear a successful coach who has proved what he is doing tell me what he could do with better facilities than hear an unsuccessful coach ask for us to throw more resources at his sinking ship. Kill has convinced me he is worth the investment.
 

We win this game, fundraising will be the least of our issues.

Either way, the money is going to come and the shovels will be the ground come April. Jerry and Rick are going to get their facilities.
 

somewhat off-point, but since they had that announcement a while back about land-o-lakes making a contribution, I haven't heard squat about the fund-raising campaign. Be nice to hear at least something from Lou Nanne or Teague about the status of the situation.
 

Ole said:
Facilities are coming.
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I want to believe you. Even if I do, are they coming soon enough to keep Jerry Kill and build on the current momentum? 2010s quality facilities do us no good if they come a decade late.
 

$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
 


bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
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I mean, I think we all agree that there is an unseemly corruption around college athletics, but to pretend that money towards facilities would have otherwise been spent on Physics is just plain silly. Criticize society and I'll join in, but corporate sponsors are here for the marketing. And there is no publicity and therefore no reason to spend 20+ million worth of marketing dollars on sponsoring the physics facility.
 

bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
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You are on the football board.... Just letting you know.
 

bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
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You're under the impression that $190 million is going to be spent on a lunchroom? Oh dear..
 

bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
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Can't tell if you're being serious...or...??:confused:
 

MNVCGUY said:
Well that came out of nowhere.....my point was that drooling over Oregon level facilities is pointless because we don't have the kind of financial backing to come up with facilities anywhere close to what they have. As I told Killjoy in another thread feel free to ignore me if you are going to get this ticked off at any comment I make and just leap to the conclusion that it was somehow a shot at the program (which it wasn't). We need upgrades and the U has a plan in place to make upgrades to our facilities but they aren't going to be in the same league as Oregon because we don't have the Nike money that flows into that place to go over the top on pretty much anything they do.
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If you want your posts ignored, stop posting. I didn't use ALL CAPs, exclamation points, or harsh language, so maybe you shouldn't be so sensitive about having your comments challenged. You don't want comparisons to Oregon, so tell us which schools it's appropriate to compare with. And if schools with more financial resources are ones our facilities can't be compared with, those places also ought to be out of bounds for comparing the product on the field. There are some on here who think it's OK to criticize, but don't want to know the reasons behind what takes place.
 

bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
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I agree. Let's cap it right after completion of the new sports complex.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Well that came out of nowhere.....my point was that drooling over Oregon level facilities is pointless because we don't have the kind of financial backing to come up with facilities anywhere close to what they have. As I told Killjoy in another thread feel free to ignore me if you are going to get this ticked off at any comment I make and just leap to the conclusion that it was somehow a shot at the program (which it wasn't). We need upgrades and the U has a plan in place to make upgrades to our facilities but they aren't going to be in the same league as Oregon because we don't have the Nike money that flows into that place to go over the top on pretty much anything they do.
Click to expand...

The impression that Oregon gets a ton of Nike money is inaccurate. They get a ton of money from Uncle Phil's personal stash. The issue and comparison should be "why is Phil willing to part with some of his billions while our Fortune 500 execs seem to have proverbial cobwebs encasing their wallets?"
 

killme said:
If you want your posts ignored, stop posting. I didn't use ALL CAPs, exclamation points, or harsh language, so maybe you shouldn't be so sensitive about having your comments challenged. You don't want comparisons to Oregon, so tell us which schools it's appropriate to compare with. And if schools with more financial resources are ones our facilities can't be compared with, those places also ought to be out of bounds for comparing the product on the field. There are some on here who think it's OK to criticize, but don't want to know the reasons behind what takes place.
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Not sure why this is difficult for you but will try again....I said we should not try to compare to Oregon. Who should we compare ourselves too? Seems pretty obvious that our facilities need to be on par with or better then the teams we are in direct competition in the BIG.

As to the part in bold, I have just as much right to be here as you do, and I have no problem with my comments being challenged but you made your challenge about something that had nothing to do with my comment and tried to make it seem like I was making a point that I wasn't. If you want to discuss it privately I am more then happy to but I won't waste any more board space trying to defend myself to you because I know it is a lost cause.
 

bkrownd said:
$190 million for a new lunch room is just absurd. That's more than twice what they spent on the first new Physics building in over 80 years! Somebody needs to put a cap on this silly money before the core mission of our Universities becomes a side show to the arms race of the athletics departments and profiteering of ESPN et al. :mad:
Click to expand...

How much was the new student Rec & Wellness Center? I think I heard in excess of $150 million, plus I'm sure that bubble they put up behind the baseball and softball fields wasn't cheap. Is that part of the core mission? Football and basketball (and hockey here) are excellent marketing tools for the U, I bet applications would go up and a pretty decent clip if our football team made the CFP or the basketball team goes to a Final Four. There have been problems in intercollegiate athletics since the first kickoff in 1800's, so this is not a new problem. Yes money is bigger now, but the 'problems' have always existed. I, for one, don't really want to watch a chess match between two schools or how fast two people can solve a trigonometry problem to see which school is better. I'm proud of how our athletic programs are being run, yes there have been some issues, but it seems like the right people are in place and we are moving forward! Let's beat Becky!
 

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