DaneFan2k3

People will continue to mash me for my pessimistic views, but when you say "I believe the community will be the main supporters in time," all I have to say is that this same statement was the mantra for the A-C Yanks, Diamond Dogs, Albany Firebirds, Albany Patroons, Albany Attack (all now defunct), and still is for the Albany ConQuest and Albany River Rats. Most people aren't willing to drive down the Northway after work for games ... I think it's sad, but I think it's true ... the only people that ever go to Rats or Quest games are those that get free tickets, and then when asked to pay for them they have something better to do. On the flip side, to be a bit more positive, Albany is a town that does embrace winners ... and basketball is the main sport and always will be. Football is great and wins, but since they play teams that don't have "names" (Brown vs. Pitt, Monmouth vs. Syracuse) they won't bring the folks in.

UALBANY WINS AMERICA EAST CONFERENCE MEN’S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIP Boston, Mass. – University at Albany’s Gered Burns won the 1,000-meter run in a school-record time and was a member of the winning 4x800-meter relay, as his team won its second consecutive indoor conference title at the America East Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships. Albany scored 140.50 points to win the crown on Saturday, Feb. 21 at Boston University’s Track and Tennis Center. The Great Danes came from behind to defeat Northeastern, who was second with 128.50. Burns went 2:26.50 in the 1,000 to break the previous school standard by more than one second. He also ran the anchor leg on the first-place 4x800 relay that also set a UAlbany mark with a time of 7:39.67. Sam Gonzalez, Noel Campbell and Rich Villanueva were also members of a team that eclipsed the old record of 7:43.51 set two years ago. Kamar Elliott, a defensive back on the UAlbany football team, became the team’s third individual champion when he leaped a personal-best 49-feet, 3-inches in the triple jump. His jump was just one-and-a-half inches off the existing school record, and beat the field by exactly three feet. Fred Frese and Naron Stewart picked up second-place finishes in the heptathlon and high jump, respectively. Paul Roche, who won the long jump on the first day, placed second in the 55-meter hurdles (7.67) and fourth in the heptathlon. In the women’s competition, Albany finished second in the team standings to champion Northeastern. The Great Danes, who totaled 128 points, were third in this championship last year. Jennifer Aubin broke her own school standard in the winning the triple jump with a leap of 40-feet, 1.75-inches. Aubin, who was second in this event in 2003, was fourth in the long jump on Friday evening. Teresa Covert, who became the first UAlbany athlete to qualify for the NCAA outdoor championships last spring, was second in the 55-hurdles (8.04) and fourth in the 55-dash (7.19). Diane Matthews set a UAlbany record in the 800-meter run, as she finished third in 2:13.59. Alyssa Lotmore, Tequirra Cox and Joy Williams were also third in the 1,000-meter run, 200-meter dash and shot put, respectively. ********** 2004 America East Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships (Boston University Track and Tennis Center, Boston, Mass.) Final Results MEN – 1. Albany 140.50, 2. Northeastern 128.50, 3. UMBC 117.50, T4. Boston U. 95, T4. New Hampshire 95, 6. Binghamton 86, 7. Maine 84.50, 8. Stony Brook 30, 9. Hartford 1. WOMEN – 1. Northeastern 179, 2. Albany 128, 3. New Hampshire 109, 4. Maine 93, 5. Boston U. 75, 6. Binghamton 55, T7. Stony Brook 46, T7. UMBC 46, 9. Vermont 42, 10. Hartford 6.

Brown got into it with the same referee on the under the hoop foul call on Knotts a few plays earlier, so he was pushing his luck (according to that ref anyhow). Bad time to get T'ed up.

Earthtones Men Serendipity Women Earthtones have an mp3 for listening in a feature story on the main UAlbany page, Rusted Root's "Send me on my way". Very nice.

Lati ... funny ... so that's good then. Of course, who knows how the nomination process works, but it's good to have something I guess.

I checked the list and Iati wasn't on there, that is why I posted it. I put in my post that Martin was on the list, but CA had literally maybe 200 people on the list.

This is somewhat old "news", as it is from January 12. But I just found it, and so I will now share. Take from it what you will. Both Brent Wilson and Brian Lillis were on the list of 32 McD's All American Nominees from the state of Iowa ... Joe Dyson was one of 16 to be nominated from Delaware ... In all, it seems to be a pretty easy first nomination process, as 2,500 kids were nominated nationally. Bauman was not one of the only 10 Pennsylvania nominees (seems strange that with two major Metropolitan areas you get just 10 nominations from that state) ... of note from Pa. was Bilal Benn (Siena). On the women's side, only Gia Sanders made the cut, as one of 27 nominees from the state of Maryland. Todd Martin was nominated as one of about a million from CA last year, but Iati was not. Jamar was not nominated in 2002. While they are clearly not going to make the cut, here is how the process works: http://mcdonaldsallamerican.theinsiders.co...ionprocess.html Here is the announcement of the nominations: http://mcdonaldsallamerican.theinsiders.co...m/2/223025.html

As it stands now, you can offer less than the minimum number of scholarships ... not a great way to be competitive at that top level, but that rules change wouldn't be necessarily the only reason we could move up ... I think it would just make it possible to get competitive faster. Many schools already do not offer the full compliment of scholarships. It's not like I-A, where there is a strict minimum required for participation.

UA Alum - the banners you're talking about have been in University Gym all year (and in the lobby of University Gym). Those are just the names. The banners that got put up in the rafters of the RACC are much, much larger and feature each schools' logo.

Eight of the America East Conference banners got put up in the RACC today. Look good. Vermont's is missing, leaving me to think they're not completely done yet.

Originally my post said it was unfair to play the Title IX card. I still think it's unfair to say that is the only reason, but alum72 is correct in saying they did also eliminate three women's sports in conjunction with football to save money for the overall school and athletics department. http://www.newhaven.edu/athletics/news/200...scontinue04.htm One of the main reasons they got rid of football when they did is that they couldn't afford to put together a "regional" schedule, as was said on this board. There was no one around left to play, costing them more money to branch out nationally. They just don't have the money to go D-I, and apparantly don't want to step back to DIII in everything.

UAalum, I don't think scheduling Siena would be a big deal. We play them every year or almost ever year in the sports that I already mentioned. We would just need to get UAlbany men's lacrosse and Siena baseball on board. I have a feeling that being the stronger programs in each of those sports, these teams/coaches believe they don't have anything to gain by playing the opposite school. You can leave out football and then set up something for track and cross countries involving the ECAC's if you can't schedule dual meets against Siena. The Siena competition would be good for both schools. Siena can trot out their basketball teams, and we can trot out all the other sports when we have down basketball years. It would be close annually, and hopefully would bring out some fans and or more students to each of the games. I don't think it would be a big deal at all to get that done. If anything, I'd say Siena was afraid to do something like that. God, even the (gulp) community might get fired up about something like that. It definitely would work better with Stony Brook and Binghamton, as you play each of them in-conference in all sports (or at least then you make the competition about the sports that each of the three has in common in-conference, thus leaving out football again). You could even do an all-SUNY competition (Governor's Trophy?), although that requires UB to schedule BingU, SBU and UAlbany, which is a burden to them being out of conference and wouldn't happen. Three out of Four isn't bad. What was Siena's reasoning behind getting rid of football? That it didn't fit their priorities or something? Can we assume one priority is to upgrade the rest of their sports then? I really have to say that Siena would be against any proposal like that. They have everything to lose (their perceived status as the "better" Division I school in the area) and nothing to gain (if they beat us, they were supposed to by being D-I longer). I think they know that beating us in baseball and two basketballs won't make up for their seemingly shoddy performances in the other sports.

Unofficially, Siena would either lead 4-3 or trail 5-4 after the fall-winter portion of the mythical Mayor's Cup, with wins in Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, Women's Soccer and Women's Golf. UAlbany won in Vollyeball, Men's Soccer and Field Hockey. Siena leads 4-3 in straight-up, head-to-head competitions. There are games scheduled in softball (DH), women's lacrosse and women's tennis the rest of the way. Men's lacrosse, baseball, football, and track & cross country don't have direct competitions with Siena this year. In Cross Country, for example, you would have to either schedule a dual meet annually, or you would just agree to take the higher team finisher at the IC4A-ECAC end-of-season Championships. In that case, UAlbany leads 5-4, as both X-C teams finished ahead of Siena. The same could be said for Indoor and Outdoor Track. As with the other schools' competitions, you would probably want to weight basketball a little more than the other sports, although with the Saints dropping football that wouldn't exactly be fair to UAlbany. I read through the three that I posted above, and I think two of them weighted the sports based on what appears to be level of scholarships provided (i.e. football and basketball are the "money" sports and should count more heavily). I'm sure the only UAlbany sport that wouldn't want to schedule Siena is men's lacrosse, as they play a schedule way above the Saints' heads. I think Coach Marr avoids playing the "easy" games, and rightly so. Maybe they would do it in this case, though, to generate interest for the athletic program as a whole.

I think it's time for all of us to head over there and start beating the "Mayor's Cup" drum ... what is the hold up? Even with them dropping football, I feel we would beat them in an all-sports head-to-head competition ... various other "rivalry" schools have these sorts of year-long things going on, here are three that I could find easily on Google: Indiana vs. Purdue http://iuhoosiers.com/newsarchive/03-04/ti...itanseries.html "Each sport is worth one point towards an overall championship. A total of 20 points can be won. The winner of regular season head-to-head competition earns the point for its institution. Should the teams split or tie in regular season competition the point is split between the two institutions (i.e. if each team wins two games in baseball the point is split). If the two institutions do not compete in head-to-head regular season competition, the team that places higher at the Big Ten Championship will earn the point. Should they tie in conference championship competition the point will be split. In the sport of track & field three-way meets that are scored as dual meets do not count as head-to-head competition." USC vs. UCLA http://gauntlettrophy.ocsn.com/ "UCLA and USC will compete against one another in the following sports with the point total for each sport listed. In the event of a tie in the season series in a particular sport, both universities will split the point total for the sport equally. For those sports that do not compete head-to-head, Pac-10 and/or NCAA competition will be used to determine the season series winner. For sports with multiple events, such as men’s and women’s track and women’s swimming, the dual meet finish of the teams will be used to award the points in each to the winner. The 18 sports listed below will be worth a total of 110 points. Football, women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball will account for 10 points each; the 14 other sports are worth 70 points -- five points per sport. Tiebreakers are also included to settle the series. Through the joint efforts and cooperation of both USC and UCLA, the point formula was carefully devised, and agreed upon in full, to allow for both schools to evenly and fairly compete for the Lexus Gauntlet." Duke vs. North Carolina http://www.carlylecup.com/ "Duke vs. North Carolina will compete in 23 sports, with a revised scoring formula in effect for Year 4 of the competition. A total of 26 points is now at stake. Two points will be awarded for the season series winner in football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The other 20 sports will each be worth 1 point. There will no longer be a tiebreaker. Should Duke and UNC tie in the competition, 13-13, the Carlyle Cup will be retained by the school that last won it. Points for each sport are awarded "winner take all" on which school wins more head-to-head meetings or has a higher ACC finish. If all head-to-head meetings are split, each school gets one-half of the designated point total. Post-season (ACC, NCAA Tournament) is included in head-to-head meetings."

I was in the RACC working out today, and saw some construction-type people in the RACC lobby ... so I asked one of them what they were doing. One guy told me that they were building a permanent merchandise store for the athletic department, or at least the structure for one, in the lobby. No word on when it will be open, but presumeably this would be the new home of Great Danes Gear (vs. having the table under the tent for games?? Sounds like a good idea and revenue-generator.

I think it's actually nicer. That's bad news for UAlbany, in terms of their track teams will get a huge boost from this. We were top dogs in track, or at least one of the top three in the conference. Now Binghamton will be a competitor, I think. Don't let the UA students get a whiff of the sentence where they point out that East Gym is now going to be a student recreation center...

On one site someone entered season totals for him recently, and although it has the capacity for game-by-game doesn't look like they were doing it at all. They put his season totals into one game to get the site updated, it looks like. He is 13 of 36 (36.1%) on 3's ... 16.9 points, 8.9 boards, 2.6 assists as of the 20th.

There were only 23 running backs taken in the 2003 NFL Draft, including eight fullbacks and 15 tailbacks. Nine went in round four, while six went in round seven. Seems to be that teams are willing to burn a later pick on someone who could carry the ball rather than risking a high pick. Makes sense I guess. I don't know about Gary's chances, or who else will declare for this upcoming draft. Just stating some facts with my abacus.

I don't think that is necessarily the case. You could have the building on the other side of the bubble and preserve it. Why not maximize and keep it around, giving you even more space (indoor tennis, track practices)? With the long winters (evidenced by lax playing at RPI and Union in past years), you need a winter practice facility for lacrosse and baseball. The students would still need parking at night and on the weekends during the day. If you sell the students a permit, they are going to want to be able to leave their cars there when they go away, overnight, etc. So you're still going to have a problem in that respect. One possible solution is to take current faculty lots and convert them to student lots, and give the faculty the garage spaces - since they probably won't be around nights and weekends anyhow. The real problem is that when you have a 7 pm game, and people work until 5 pm ... how do you ensure those people leave work at 5 and get out of the garage before the game traffic? You really can't, so it's tough. I think the optimal space for a deck would really be next to the softball field where field hockey currently is ... or where softball is (assuming you could push it down the line into the current field hockey space). That way, it's right next to the dorms and the campus center, and would ensure use for both athletics and faculty.

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Army almost matched the Division I mark for fewest points since the shot clock was introduced, losing 56-23 to Bucknell on Friday night. The shot clock went into effect in 1986. Since then, the lowest total was by Georgia Southern in a 61-21 loss to Coastal Carolina on Jan. 2, 1997. The Black Knights were held to their fewest points since 1941. They managed only two baskets in the second half, shooting just 2-for-21 and going without a field goal for 14:19. Army set a Patriot League record for fewest points. Bucknell held an opponent to its lowest total since beating Susquehanna 22-18 in the 1941-42 season. Josh Wilson led Army (4-12, 1-3) with six points. None of his teammates had more than a single basket or scored more than three points. The Black Knights shot 7-for-36 overall. Travis Owsley made a 3-pointer that gave Army an early 8-5 lead, but Bucknell came back to take a 30-13 halftime lead. Charles Lee and Abe Badmus scored 13 points each to lead Bucknell (6-11, 2-2). Jon Clark added 12 points for Bucknell in its third straight win and Badmus grabbed nine rebounds.

I would assume you wouldn't want to remove any existing facilities, and thus instead of putting it on the tennis courts, you'd have to put it on top of the RACC lot where it stands right now. [i do think that would be one great spot for a student recreation center, which would form a sort of triad of buildings (PE-RACC-REC) without eliminating fields or practice fields.] However, as I said it wouldn't work out well for the campus with a RACC Deck, since then kids and staff would have a long trek to wherever their classes were. A much better spot would be in one of the lots across from Empire Commons, which is right near classrooms and the Commons, where there is a huge parking crunch. Although this doesn't help athletics any, it makes the most sense. Alternately, if you really want to get nutty, you could say that if athletics got a new turf field hockey field somewhere else (tennis court area), then you could put a deck there - which is closer to the podium and also right next to the RACC and PE building - thus alleviating both problems at once. Of course that turf field would take away where I think the rec center should go... maybe they could put the turf field in the area between baseball and soccer-lacrosse?

I think the Welcome Center on Collins Circle actually morphed into much more than that - it's going to be the new administration building. At least that is what someone told me last year. I assume that is still the plan, as the current administration is sort of off-campus in the two buildings on Western Avenue. It's too bad, because that would be a great location for a football stadium. The indoor track facility I think is a pipe dream, as it would cost just as much as a student recreation center. The conundrum for athletics is that the RACC track doesn't have enough room for D-I meets, yet if you build a student rec center that does have the room, you're really making another building for athletics and giving the "crap" building (the RACC) to the students. And around and around we go. I thought the other post was stating that the $100 million was for athletics only, which I know to be false. But if I misinterpreted, I apologize. Re-reading it, it still appears to say it's athletics-only, however. I don't think the turf fields are as far off as one might think. Athletics would be smart to bundle these together with some student activities turf fields, to be used for intramurals, etc. By bundling the costs together, they might be able to get the student association and or the university to cover some of the cost (i.e. putting in two or three separate fields at the same time should save some on installation costs, if not materials). A parking garage would be very, very expensive. Probably $30 million is my best guess. Most schools I have looked at state that the costs of building and also maintaining them far exceeds the revenue that is brought back with the deck's usage. That said, there is a terrible parking situation on campus and a deck would be of great use (since you can't go out forever, going up makes the most sense). The problem with building a deck near athletics is this - if you think about it, and you give students and or faculty the permits to park in the deck, you would then have to have some enforcement mechanism in place to kick those cars out during athletic events in favor of the athletics patrons. I really don't see that happening, both because it would be tedious and hard to accomplish, and because it would be unfair to the people with permits to have to continually move their cars. Also, athletics being so far away from the academic podium (by far away, I mean far enough to make academics unhappy), I also see that as a strong negative to that idea. Just doing a simple search on Google, I found the following links: http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/95/1/01_5_m.html - in 2000-2002, this deck cost between $10.5 and $15 million for 1,500 spaces (I used my attendance electronic abacus) http://www.tp.ohio-state.edu/planning/sout...n/AppendixD.htm - estimates that the same 1,500 space garage today would cost around $28.6 million at Ohio State http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/120...2wpcouncil.html - a more recent article (2003) estimated that again 1,500 spaces would be nearly $25 million

http://hr.albany.edu/content/profvac.asp I saw the head coaching job on this page not two weeks ago, and the absence probably means the search is now closed and there should be a coach soon. The assistant job is on the current employment page, meaning it's open and unfilled. If you poke around long enough, you can find things out without anyone telling you.

In reference to the topic of facility upgrades that was touched upon in a different post, I would like to start this new thread to get some opinions and to ask for some more information. In my opinion, the credibility of this board is in serious question due to some of the misinformation that is going up here without any accountability on the part of the posters. I know for a fact that there are no plans for a $100 million facility upgrade in athletics; to say otherwise is either gross misinformation or an out-and-out lie (or, perhaps to that person, out-and-out optimism). Allow me to rephrase slightly - there are plans, but that is all. There is no contract and/or agreement, as was stated in an earlier post in a different thread. Also, there is no planned announcement for the spring. Perhaps that poster was referring to possible interviews and consulting activities that could move forward in the spring-summer? I believe the plans are further along than ever before, but in talking with various athletes and employees after reading that post, I determined that the statement about the upgrades was seriously off-base. Various plans have been in the works for a couple of years, but have never gotten off the ground. The university just put upwards of $60 million into the Life Sciences Building on campus. The total athletics goal for the "Bold. Vision." campaign was around $8 million ... including everything. Scholarships, endowment, facilities, etc. This is not to say that with donations specified to athletics it couldn't be more than that amount- however if the donations come mostly unrestricted (the most likely scenario), then that is the minimum athletics will get. To post something stating that there is a contract or an agreement in place for the upgrades is in my opinion doing a great disservice to this board and the fans that read these posts. Just to begin to further the debate a little, the facility needs at UA are so great that $100 million might not cover them all. From my general observations (and those of my friends and colleagues) and through talking with a few athletes that I know, I compiled this list: outdoor track replacement (can not host championships due to not having enough lanes, a flaw in the original design); football stadium upgrades or construction of a new stadium; field hockey turf field; soccer-lacrosse turf field; bleacher replacements at all fields; press boxes on all fields. This does not even take into account the facility upgrades that are long overdue in the area of student recreation, as 12,000+ students currently share one swimming pool, six basketball courts (six!), a small indoor running track, various tennis courts, the bubble (tennis, sometimes basketball) and a tiny weight room on campus. The new gym inside Crossgates Mall is at least 10 times bigger than the RACC Weight Room, which is intended (in theory) to service the whole campus. They (students) also compete for general recreation time with intramurals, outside events (concerts, fundraisers, graduations, various group rentals), and of course intercollegiate athletic practices and games. Not to mention the New York Giants in the summer. If anything were to be constructed on campus in the near future, don't put your money on a football stadium. Bet on a new student recreation center going up first. You have to keep the 11,000+ non-student-athletes happy, and from what I read and hear from talking to students, it's not happening right now. I guess in closing my post, I would ask the people who claim to be "in the know" to provide details of what they know. Obviously they claim to be representing people involved in this process, so get it out on the table if you're really involved. If you're not supposed to be saying anything (if this is some sort of secret plan), then I think posting anything at all in the first place is just as bad as posting what I consider to be misinformation. I really feel like you have jumped the gun in saying something like that, so put your money where your mouth is and let's have it ...

I talked with someone at the women's game tonight who works at UAlbany, and he told me that the coaching staff loves the WR's that the team has for next season, including some redshirts from last year. I don't know much about the roster, but they said that there are like three kids who sat out last year and would have started over anyone we had. Big talk for some true frosh. Sounded promising and apparantly the coaching staff feels that way (according to this person) as well. Anyone know anything about our freshmen from this past season and care to shed some light?