Mizzou announces $10 million donation for facility project
On Tuesday, Missouri announced it has received a large donation toward the construction of a new indoor practice facility.
Tigers director of athletics Jim Sterk announced that the school received $10 million from an anonymous donor less than a month after its Board of Curators approved a study to be conducted toward a new indoor facility near Memorial Stadium. According to Mizzou, it’s the fifth time the athletics program has received an eight-figure gift, three of which have come in the past five years.
“The magnitude, impact and timing of this gift is significant as we attempt to advance the indoor football practice facility project as quickly as possible,” Sterk said in a statement. “As the SEC’s furthest-most Northern school, it is critical that our program have a full length indoor practice facility to utilize year-round, and this gift, coupled with the Board of Curators’ action earlier this month, gives this project great momentum.
“We are grateful for the generous support that this family continues to provide to Mizzou athletics, and believe it demonstrates a strong commitment to Mizzou football and Coach [Eli] Drinkwitz’s leadership of our program. This is a project that has been a part of the athletics facilities master plan for several years, and it is something that is definitely needed.”
Missouri is the only football program in the SEC that currently doesn’t have a 120-yard indoor practice facility, as the Devine Pavilion is only 70 yards long. That is now likely to change in the future.
“One of the things that I quickly identified as a need, not a want, was a full-length practice facility for Mizzou football, and on behalf of everyone in our program, we are excited, humbled and blessed by this donation to the project,” Drinkwitz said in a statement. “This facility is critical to the year-round training and development of our student-athletes, and we believe it will help transform our football program for many years to come, just as the South End Zone Facility is already doing.”
Per Mizzou, a site hasn’t yet been selected for this new facility, but the athletics department “will provide the Board of Curators with a project scope, budget and fundraising plan no later than January 30, 2021.”
https://twitter.com/MizzouAthletics/status/1344025766082695168
“Missouri is only program in SEC that currently doesn’t have 120-yard indoor practice facility”
So UGA finally got there’s built huh? nice
“a site hasn’t yet been selected for this new facility,”
because Mizzou’s sports pavilions are all already built out, this may get built at the expense of one of the outdoor practice fields.
Good deal. A campus should never have a construction crane idle. Just move it from one project to the next in order to ensure you’re keeping up.
“A campus should never have a construction crane idle.”
Not if you’re an SEC campus, you are either upgrading or falling behind.
It will be at least 2 years before this facility will be move in ready……and that’s if they come up with enough money to build it within the next year…..donor’s need to step up
With 10 mill already in hand they can easily break ground, Devine Pav only cost about 2 million more(12MM) so building this won’t be some bank breaker. If Drinkz says we need this it’s very simple, you get it. Like Pinkel said when we came to the SEC, it’s time to go big or go home.
I attended an SEC football game recently. It was” out-freakin-doors”. This means practicing indoors makes the practice session less realistic and less effective. This means getting your hind-end beaten in SEC football games. This means not getting the top recruits.
This is a prime example of how government supported entities decide how to spend money. Don’t tell me it’s private money. The whole campus is a huge government project that soaks up more government money than the SEConference can count on all their little fingers and toes. A new indoor facility is also a bigger virus trap where UV light from the sun, changing temperatures, cold and warm air extremes, and wind can’t keep students and coaches healthy.
This is fluff and fluff will always make a person and a program weaker, softer, and a lot less interesting. I’m already a lot less interested because i noticed that I could obey the rules of not transmitting a virus around my circle of business, home, and family but evidently college football teams can’t figure that out and therefore don’t want me to buy tickets to their games anymore.
Simple math here. Average ticket is at least 70 bucks x 15,000 covid seats safely situated OUTDOORS, equals 6,300,000. dollars plus about the half that in parking and concession profit equals 9,600,000. dollars plus all the money that comes from having a football program lose more games. The next thing that happens after this is same boosters that donate the money for this will demand that coaches who are told to use their new toys must now be fired because they made their program softer.
Playing real football in practice, the safest way possible, the smartest way possible is what makes a program win. Not spending money like a teenage girl at the indoor shopping mall.
You know nothing about what the indoor facility will be used for. You acted like you have been the HC and know that indoor facility doesn’t help at all and just a waste of money.
Have you ever heard of splitting up the team so that you can get more players getting reps and save time as well.
Any fair minded person has to admit that a 100 yard indoor facility can be used to a better advantage than a shorter one, ‘on the days where it must be used, or can be used for some specific training goal that might be equally or better address indoors.
Thanks for the argument: If you can, expand on it please;
ie: how can splitting a team up work better indoors in limited space than outdoors in more space (and there could be a great answer to this)
ie2: reps surely can be limited by space…. also by each drill’s participant n…… also by time between reps….. also by feedback between reps….. also by time it takes to move around the whole practice footprint….. and much more. So while more space helps in some ways it hurts in others. Please continue though, I’m interested in your case. Having been a practice planner for 20 years, I can’t think of many things more interesting to discuss. And gridiron football has a notoriously low efficiency practice tradition. In coaching seminars and training for many sports, it’s common observed ‘wasted time’ is often referred as an example of how not to plan athletic practice.
It wasn’t that long ago that Georgia(Athens) had a 20 yard indoor facility, getting your training quarters up to snuff is a pretty big deal in the SEC. When I look at the bowl results and see how SEC teams are struggling with the likes of Indiana or NC, I know that not only must the SEC be the best at recruiting(already are) but keep the edge and increase the advantage. SEC coaching has been lagging but that also is now changing. At some point in the near future, no SEC team should expect to lose a bowl game.
Lefty is correct about the ability the Tigers will be able to do use all this extra room compared to the current one Wolman thought I agree todays players are a little soft these days lol. I had several friends that played on the team while I was there and got to see (the current facility) it first hand. Recruits love all the little extras schools will provide them and it plays a role in them choosing where they’ll play. Glad to see my donations are being spent wisely.