Reporting And Writing Class Fall 2010: The future of the Glas

The Future of The Glas

Budget issues interfere with construction of indoor facility

By: Jake Kelly and Zuzka Tomcikova
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   The John S. Glas fieldhouse has been the home of the hockey team since 1967 and is the home of many championships. When “the Glas” opened there were only two other buildings on BSU’s campus. The athletic programs were just getting started and so was BSU’s hockey. Since then, the school along with the hockey team has upgraded. With the improvement of the school and the hockey team it became necessary to build a new arena.
         The lack of top notch facilities at for BSU have caused a lot of frustration among some of the athletic programs. "It's always a little annoying when the teams we're beating have nicer things than us," said sophomore soccer player Mal Lowe. "The new facilities would really help us build our image and I think it would help a lot with recruiting too."

The completion of the BREC has left “the Glas” vacant and unused, except for occasional roller derby matches. The plan for "the Glas" is to turn it into an indoor practice facility for the BSU football, soccer, and track teams. “If they do make an indoor practice facility it would make things so much easier when it gets cold out,” said junior soccer player Kelly Pointon. “It would be nice to have a weight room that isn’t old and beat up too.”

The idea of the new turf indoor field is complemented by a new weight room, which is supposed to exceed all current facilities. Construction on the new indoor facility has yet to be started because there is no funding and no grants to finance the project.

“I will be really upset if the new indoor facility isn’t being built,” said red shirt junior football player George Persack-Dennet. “Ever since the B.R.E.C. started being built we’ve been told we would also get new facilities too.” The lack of funding for the new facilities puts a lot of pressure on the teams themselves including the coaches.

According to the athletic programs grants are hard to come by and won’t cover the entire cost of the project. Fund raising is the best hope for getting the project started. “A new weight room and turf indoor facility isn’t cheap,” said football offensive coordinator Eric Medberry. “Fund raising is our best shot at getting the project started because we can work with all the different athletic programs who want to use it and combine resources.”

In order to secure a grant many things have to happen first. "The first thing that needs to happen is we need to fund raise and try and come up with enough money to get the project started," said Jeff Tesch, head football coach. "It's going to be very hard to get any more grants because of the B.R.E.C. just being completed. That means it's up to us [the athletic programs] to come up with the majority of the funds."

Other than the hockey programs BSU is a division II school but most of BSU programs are very successful in their conferences. This success with BSU’s athletic programs has lead some athletes to become a bit frustrated. “I know were division II and we get less financial support than division I but I still feel like we're getting screwed over,” said junior soccer player Bri Scanlan. “Whenever we travel to other teams home fields their facilities are always nicer than ours.”

The actual financial budget for the project is unknown as Rick Goeb, director of athletics, and Sarah Levesque, associate athletic director, were unavailable for questioning. However the average indoor turf costs $1.85 per square foot and at about 2,500 square feet "the Glas" is no small project. That doesn't even include the new weight room either which will easily add another $15 to 20,000 on to the project. Head Football Coach Jeff Tesch said, " It's a lot when you lay it down on paper but I'm very confident that with all the programs working together to raise the money for this facility. I believe our athletes want it bad enough to make it happen and with our collaborative efforts I think we will achieve it."

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