In the latest episode of “How the Stadium Turns,” Colorado State president Tony Frank finally acknowledged the tough reality that, as a football program, the Rams have champagne tastes and a microwave popcorn budget.
What’s the fate of the ludicrous $220 million dream of a new stadium on the CSU campus?
Well, we all know how a savvy leader operates in the Internet age: Deliver good news in person, to bask in the applause. But send the bad news under the cover of e-mail.
After 500 words of dithering in an e-mail, Frank finally got to the point Thursday and delivered the expected bad news on a new stadium to football lovers in the CSU community: “I will inform the board of governors we have not reached our $110 million funding goal, and as a result, I will not be bringing them a plan of finance.”
Translation: The big, outrageously expensive stadium is dead on arrival.
And, by the way, do you think CSU’s Jim McElwain would look good as the next football coach of Kansas?
But all is not lost for the Rams, even if they are a 9½-point underdog at Boston College.
Anybody who understands the financial dynamics of college football and the leisure habits of 21st century families clearly sees there is zero future in the Rams playing football at Hughes Stadium.
If you believe in the real estate credo of location, location, location, suffice it to say the Rams’ home field is across the street from a drive-in movie theater. Years ago, Sonny Lubick did build a successful football program far from campus and on the wrong edge of Fort Collins from the interstate, in a location that might make sense as a goat ranch. But the world has changed since Lubick was the king of Fort Fun, and even a coach as smart as McElwain will likely bail out or get fired before crowds of 30,000 people regularly fill Hughes Stadium again.
After watching football games from Notre Dame to Chadron State throughout 35 states, I offer this opinion as diplomatically as possible: Hughes is the worst location for a stadium experienced in my five decades as a devout lover of college football. Pumping the $50 million that CSU has raised for a new stadium project into Hughes would be more wasteful than dumping that cash in Horsetooth Reservoir. Hughes would make even less sense in 2050 than it does now.
As a resourceful, persistent leader, Frank has devised and will present alternative stadium plans to his board, although he is intent on ignoring one solution that might make the most sense in the long term.
The Rams could drop down a level of competition in football, compete against the likes of Montana and Delaware for the FCS national title, while maintaining Division I status in all other sports, with new emphasis on lacrosse or some athletic pursuit that actually matches the talents of teenage competitors in Colorado.
My suggestion for CSU to join the Big Sky Conference as a football member, however, has been met with great disdain by folks who would rather shout their Rams pride than actually get in the car and drive to games. In response, I am open to a different course of action.
So long as CSU dreams of beating the Alabama Crimson Tide, here is what the Rams should do: Build a little stadium on campus. This football program does not need more than 20,000 fixed seats. Make sure wealthy boosters have luxury boxes to put them in the festive mood to donate more money. Let the vast majority of students sit on grassy knolls, with beach balls and blankets. Design this cozy facility with room to expand down the line.
Heck, I’m even happy to salute Frank and give him full credit for the best little stadium in America idea. “Phase the current stadium in the proposed on-campus stadium,” he wrote in the e-mail to his CSU constituents. “Under this scenario, the cost of the stadium is substantially reduced by the removal of items that we could (and would plan to) add back later, if and as funds become available. This project would rely on funds already raised …”
Could the Rams build the best little football stadium in America for $100 million?
Let’s find out.
And, if big-time football success doesn’t happen on the CSU campus?
The stadium could always be converted into the home of championship-contending teams in lacrosse and soccer.
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or
