ATHLETICS STRATEGIC PLAN APPROVED
Sept. 12, 2003 -- University of Wyoming trustees today (Friday) voted their unanimous support for renovating and improving War Memorial Stadium along with several other recommendations contained within the university's Strategic Plan for Intercollegiate Athletics, as a way to strengthen UW's competitiveness as a member of the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Read rest of story.
The strategic plan, introduced at the trustees meeting last May, provides a road map for returning UW to a position of prominence within its athletic conference. It is composed of nine sections that deal with assumptions and values, including a commitment to Division I-A status, restoring competitive excellence, ensuring academic success of student- athletes, maintaining gender equity, achieving ethnic equity and diversity, promoting student-athlete welfare, improving fundraising, strengthening marketing, and addressing facility needs.
To gauge public support for the plan, UW President Philip L. Dubois posted the planning document on the UW Web site (www.uwyo.edu) and made nearly a dozen presentations at community and service club meetings around the state. Dubois noted that UW had fallen well below the MWC spending average on intercollegiate athletics overall and on football in particular, contributing to UW's lack of recent success in most sports, including football. By affirming the assumptions and values within the plan, UW trustees signaled their support for assuring excellence in UW's Division I- A program and for significant upgrades to the school's athletics facilities, including War Memorial Stadium.
Structural engineers determined in spring 2003 that deteriorating concrete in the stadium's upper west stands must be replaced by fall 2004 at a cost of between $2.8 and $3.1 million. Design work for the repairs will begin immediately and it is expected that removal and replacement of the seating area will occur early next spring. Because this work will begin before the start of the 2004 legislative session, UW will use internal resources for interim funding of the project and for design of stadium enhancements, including a new press box and hospitality seating, which would dovetail with reconstruction of the upper west stands. Repairs and preventive maintenance to other sections of the stadium, at a cost of between $2.4 and $2.7 million, will be made in the near future.
UW trustees will include in their 2004 legislative budget request about $5.5 million in one-time funds (or $6 million in major maintenance through full-funding of the legislatively- approved formula) to reimburse the cost of stadium repairs and $10 million to establish a one-to-one matching fund for private gifts of at least $25, 000 that will fund enhancements to War Memorial Stadium ($9.8 million), construction of an indoor practice facility for football and women's soccer ($6.5 million), a state-of-the-art artificial surface for the stadium ($1 million), and covering for outdoor courts used by the women's tennis team ($1.5 million).
Stadium enhancements will include modernizing restrooms and concession stands, construction of 10 revenue-producing sponsor seating areas, and installation of chairback seating for donors to the Cowboy Joe Club at specific giving levels who also are willing to pay premium prices for the chairbacks. The legislature set a precedent in 2000 when it established a $30 million matching fund for the university's DISTINCTION campaign, an amount that was matched by private gifts less than three years into the five-year campaign.
Noting that the university's Capital Facilities Plan calls for about $ 100 million in renovations and new construction for academic buildings during the next 10 years, Dubois said he could not support the idea of building a new stadium, estimated to cost $85 million, or $120 million with a dome. He estimated that repairs and renovations to War Memorial Stadium should extend the useful life of the structure by 40 to 50 years.
The trustees also will ask the legislature for a $1.5 million annual appropriation for operating expenses designed to make UW's marquee sports -- football, men's and women's basketball, and women's volleyball -- more competitive by stabilizing coaching staffs, improving the recruitment of student-athletes, and increasing the use of charter flights for game travel rather than less efficient buses. Dubois noted that this request is one-half of the amount suggested in the strategic plan, saying that a university/state partnership is an appropriate way to address UW intercollegiate athletics, what he called one of the state's preeminent recreation opportunities. UW's portion of the funding would come from revenues generated from intercollegiate athletics.