05.07.16
by

Inside The Mind Of A Stadium Stomper

tustadiumconstruction

With a lot of luck, this is what Geasey Field will look like in 2 years.

Days before her scheduled graduation in 2015, Rachel Hall was struck by a hit-and-run driver, leaving her in a coma. After an agonizing year of medical treatments and therapy, Hall received her graduating honors with her fellow Temple University grads on Friday.

Hall was among the 9,341 Owls who graduated and made most of her fame not only in the classroom, but with her athletic accomplishments on the site of the future on-campus stadium at Temple, currently called Geasey Field.

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Colorado State started construction on its $220 million stadium. This photo was taken Friday night. It will open in the fall of 2017.

There would have been no athletic opportunities for Hall or her teammates had there been a group of Geasey Field Stompers when the university sought to build the then “largest Astroturf field in the world” 40 years ago. (They used the same land as grass fields for at least 63 years. In 1953, university public information director Bob Geasey died and the fields were immediately named after him.)

Fortunately, most students today at Temple are like the ones back then, intelligent and driven to success.

Then you have others,  looking to pick a fight when there is no fight really there.

Those are called Stadium Stompers and at least one went off on an illogical rant in response to our recent post how misguided the stompers are. Here are just some twitter responses.

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Yes. People who want to donate to that can follow this link and name it as their specific cause. There are donors who made stadium-specific donations. If the stadium is not built, the money returns to the donors.

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To give to the office of sustainability, go to Temple.edu, find giving , click other and name that as your cause. I’m sure they would appreciate as many Stomper contributions as possible.

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You are also allowed to donate to that as well.

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That above tweet, as well as the others, represents a basic misunderstanding how of university projects are funded at Temple. It might be “stale” to her, but it’s how funding life works at major universities without an Ivy League-level endowment. For a special project like a stadium, where the university does not want to dip into the general fund, it solicits donations. The Board of Trustees made clear it would not approve this project without special conditions. For the stadium, the bulk of the project will be funded by donations from alumni specifically directed toward that project. The  balance of the money required will come from shifting the Lincoln  Financial Field rent to the new stadium. If the project isn’t started, the money returns to the donor and the Owls continue to rent LFF with the Linc money. It’s a relatively simple concept that is hard for some who have not done their homework to understand.

Something tells me Rachel Hall and most of the graduates yesterday have done enough homework to understand simple reality that others interpret only as stale rhetoric.

Monday: Future Schedules

Wednesday: Real Meaning of Unfinished Business

Friday: Stadium End Game

 

19 thoughts on “Inside The Mind Of A Stadium Stomper”

  1. Unfortunately, Mike you are wasting your breath with these fools, This generation believes in relativism and not facts or truth. Look at Ferguson. The fact is that even though the officer was attacked it doesn’t matter because they know cops are inherently racist. Look at the false college rape statistics. It doesn’t matter because all college men are rapists and women would never voluntarily engage in sex. Look at Caityln Jenner. The fact that he has male genitalia doesn’t matter because he thinks het’s a woman. The same problem exists here. it doesn’t matter that the donor controls where the money goes. They just believe that it can and should go somewhere else and that makes it true in their minds. Guess what, two can play that game with one twist. We think you’re whiny, complainy,delusional fools and because we think that it’s true it is. This time though it is actually true.

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    • when we went to school and they were putting in the astroturf at geasey (at least I think that was generally around the time), I don’t remember anyone protesting about the impact that astroturf would have on the community. We were too busy trying to graduate and with extra curricular activities. I slept 4 hours a night through much of my time at Temple. I wasn’t going to get up and paint a sign “No to Geasey Field improvements.” A stadium essentially now is a Geasey Field improvement.

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      • A typical student will say please don’t bother me with facts.

      • A “typical student?” Temple has somewhere in the neighborhood of 30K students. I saw about 50 tops at any of the demonstrations. Making this seem as if it is the majority of students is ignoring facts.

      • I think you are right there. Maybe John meant typical Stadium Stomper. All polls of the general student population pull between a 64-77 percent approval rating of the new stadium.

  2. Y’know, it really doesn’t bother me if some students want to test their right to some civil disobedience – that’s part of what getting an education can be for some. Disagree, get annoyed, but never say they don’t have a right to do it. So, instead of dissing these kids, just feel confident in the details you all have outlined that the stadium will get built assuming the funding goals are met. And just leave it at that. If the donors only care about a stadium, that’s their prerogative and nothing this minority of students does will change that.

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    • Yeah they the students have a right to protest but they don’t have a right to block broad street in protest or shut down opposing views which many of these snowflakes do with their safe spaces, micro-aggressions and on and on. These stadium stompers are a small minority of the student population but they yell the loudest. I am sure they are mostly fine and liberal arts majors! In a couple of years they will be whining they have student loans to pay and can’t find jobs with their gender, ethnic, social worker and English literature degrees. Perhaps that is why they back a $15 minimum wage for low skilled jobs. These kids are being used by the community to blackmail Temple into giving something to the locals, IE jobs, a community center etc. We’ve seen it all before, it is called doing business in Philadelphia. I find it funny that the local community would much rather have empty lots with trash strewn about and weeds ten feet high.

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      • It’s either going to be the largest astroturf field in the world or there is going to be another Morgan Hall built on it. If it’s another Morgan Hall, chances are local residents are going to demonstrate for a stadium. What causes more disruption? Frat parties 10 months a year or football games six days a year? My question is: Why is it OK to build a library, high rise, a student activities center, etc. on Temple’s campus but a football stadium suddenly is too much?

    • I wonder if Colo. State’s new stadium had an impact. I’m a little troubled I seldom see Temple’s name in these expansion stories. David Jones wrote a story in the Harrisburg Patriot-News (Pennlive) this week and listed the 12 best expansion candidates. His No. 1 was UCF. Yes, that same UCF program that was 0-12 with losses to Furman and FIU. His reasoning was that UCF was historically a money-making football school and Temple was not.

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  5. I doubt UCF is “making money” with their football program especially with only 30-37K attendance. Very few schools actually make money from football.

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  6. Meanwhile, a 3* QB out of NJ has committed to the Owls for next year (if commitments mean anything these days). Build a good team that wins and enough fans will find a way to get to the games so a 30-35,000 seat place isn’t big enough. Lots of bandwagon jumpers around here.

    For scheduling, with the P5 teams avoiding a game with the Owls, dance cards will fill early. Maybe the Owls end up with MWC, Sunbelt, and MAC games for non-conference matches. Not much in payoffs or fan interest. Bowl games could end up being revenge games. Means more Thursday games. Yuk.

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    • Without an early signing period, not big on early commitments. Early signing would end all of the flip-flopping, which is bad for college sports.

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    • Labor costs must be a lot cheaper there. If Temple gets twice as good a stadium for its 120 mil, it will be doing well. Don’t want Tulane’s stadium, though, and I fear that is just what we are going to get.

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  8. Hey Badley, I was a fine arts major at Temple! And, believe it or not we had a number of varsity athletes at Tyler at the time: myself, track & field; women’s tennis; men’s gymnastics; wrestling; and last but not least Mike Stromburg who played for the NY Jets. Personally, I’ve been a big Temple sports fan ever since. So, don’t go around making assumptions and, boy, do you make assumptions! And Mike, the early commits may not be good for the schools but it gives the players every opportunity to try to get the best situation for themselves in an era when the “student athletes” are taken advantage of.

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    • Laughable- Student athletes are being taken advantage of! Yeah, they are forced to participate and some of them get 5 years of college paid for including room and board. If that’s taken advantage of, sign me up! It amazes me the victimhood that has flooded our world!

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  9. A friend at a bar told me that they already ran the gas, electrical, and sewer for the stadium. He works for PGW and when they upgraded the gas line services around the stadium area they were all baffled by the size for the current demand. Clearly it all makes sense to them now.

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