Sooner Center should help in recruiting wars
The college football arms race in Oklahoma is alive and well.
OSU jumped in with a $260 million upgrade to Lewis Field, reopened in 2008 as Boone Pickens Stadium.
Two months ago, OU countered, approving designs for a new $75 million dormitory, which school officials believe will give the Sooners an edge in recruiting.
The “Sooner Center” is expected to be ready for occupancy for the fall semester of 2013, and will house close to 200 athletes, including the football freshmen and possibly sophomores. The other 51 percent of the dorm will comprise non-athletes, in accordance with NCAA rules.
While OSU will be able to continue recruiting to its stately football stadium, OU will soon be able to recruit to a state-of-the-art housing facility, which will include a dining hall, computer labs, gaming room and, perhaps the coolest part, a shopping strip on the bottom floor that figures include a convenience store, a coffee shop, a deli and possibly more.
Funding for the Sooner Center will come from private donations through the athletic department, which has already launched a fundraising campaign with a goal of at least $20 million. The rest of the cost will be covered by athletic department savings bonds, according to school officials.
Athletic director Joe Castiglione claims this dorm “will rival any of its peers nationally.”
Which should give OU another edge in recruiting.
The 33-year-old Bud Wilkinson House, once an all-athlete dorm with a plush setup that used to be the envy of every football program during the Barry Switzer era, had become outdated.
The most valuable element of the Bud was its location, across Jenkins Avenue from the Switzer Center.
The230,000 square foot Sooner Center, however, will be about as close, starting on the corner of Jenkins and Lindsey, running through where the old O’Connell’s Irish Pub & Grille used to be. The university has purchased rental properties and shopping areas on the same block where the dorm will stretch to. Because of its location, the Sooner Center will be within a mile of all of the school’s athletic facilities.
OU is able to recruit to a lot of things. Tradition. The chance to win a national title. A track record of getting players to the pros. A stable coaching staff.
Before long, OU will be able to recruit to its living quarters, too.
-JT
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Comments
OSU Athletic facilities are the best of the best. OU is playhing catchup plain and simple. OU got a lot of money in the past and OSU has turned that around with Picken’s. Okay OU fans get out your wallets….$75 vs $250 mm is a pretty large gap to make up.
@OU STupid: that is possibly the dumbest statement I have read in atleast a year. Comparing a dorm to a stadium is an absolute joke. BPS “remodel” consisted dumping a lot of money into an eyesore. Anyone with common sense would have proposed an entire new stadium with the $ it took for BPS. The OSU facilities arent EVEN close to being the best of the best. Put down the cowboy kool aide dude. You obviously havent been to very many facilities across the Big 12, let alone the nation.
And BTW feel free to join in when you can actually sellout a stadium every game for 12 straight years. You cant even sell out for the BIGGEST game of ONE season.
OSU’s whole campus is a joke. Their stadium is a fierce try by their Owner Tbone to buy them a program. Fat chance
OSU’s top of the line facilities don’t seem to include an indoor practice facility, last time I checked. How many home games have the Cowboys sold out over the last few years ?
OU Tradition and a chance to win a BCS title, but the track record of getting players to the Pro’s is why they come. If they win a BCS title or BCS Bowl along the way, that’s what the fans want to see. I.E. Bradford’s class. Big payday’s, lots of individual awards, but no respectable iron in the trophy case. The players recruited by Stoops are practically promised an early out if the do well. Only thing that stopped them this year was the lockout, not loyalty to school and program or coach.
Staff is stable only because Stoops isn’t a demanding boss and medeocrity is acceptable.
Unfortunately OU can’t close in the end-zone without tearing down the entire south section. The south ends of the main bowl and the current end-zone bleachers don’t match up architecturally. It was explored when they were working on the plans for the facade and second deck, but determined to be too expensive for the number of seats that would be gained.
I like the neo-classical design of the building which blends in well with some of the campuse’s original buildings. Can’t say what building it on the old McConnell’s site means (it must mean something). Who was the lead architect? An OU grad?
upper deck the north end zone. there is still a twenty something thousand waiting list for season tickets. isn’t the OU waiting list bigger than actual attendees for a football game at bp stadium?
Good question Boomer, what is going to happen to the bud, I know they are doing construction around the bud but not sure what they are doing, and they are taking their sweet time with getting the land where old O’Connell’s used to be ready for construction.
I just hate to see us drop behind the likes of Nebraska, etc., who are expanding their stadium “again” to gain over 90,000 in attendance. Recruits like lots of seats with people in them, plus a winning program. We have that covered.
LOL! TEXAS has both OU and OSU beat in both catagories! Athletic Facilities and Dorms! This is one of the funniest articles I’ve read all week!
Hey will, what’s even funnier is Texas can’t even win a Big 12 Title muchless a BCS Chapionship with the top recruits in the nation ever year! So if I was you I would be trying to figure out why your head coach is always getting out coached!!
Lets stop the in-fighting and be glad that two major in-state schools have improved their facilities.
Hey, you used to write fantastic, but the last several posts have been kinda boring… I miss your tremendous writings. Past couple of posts are just a little bit out of track! come on!
Jake, it seems as if you are saying OSU has the edge in stadiums. If so that is laughable. I agree that it is very nice, and a vast improvement from its past, but it is not even OU Memorial Stadium’s equal. Consider:
OUMS seats over 82,000.
OUMS sells out every game.
OUMS has one of the better jumbotrons in the country.
OUMS faces the correct direction, N-S.
OUMS is at least as nice and fits the architecture of the campus.
BPS probably does have a nicer pressbox. Perhaps this is what slanted your opinion.