Wichita State Athletic Facilities Discussion Official Thread

[bleed yellow]

Football never worked in Wichita…

Sedgwick County population 1986 = 385,000

Sedgwick County population 2021 = 521,000

Gotta think football would work at some level… I’ve said before, acquire BCCC and you’d have a pretty good start. Unfortunately, we can only dream and reminisce at this point.


https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/2...ita/population

I think for WSU, they can look at the football situation however they want, but in the grand scheme of things it will have to be brought back eventually if the school is serious about playing in a respectable conference.
Look what the lack of football has done to KU. They are currently attempting to sail into the Big 10, but instead someone up there dropped their giant football anchor and made it to where at the very least trying to sail out of the turbulent Big 12 won’t be so easy

[Shockm]

We don't have the type of television numbers to get us in a "Super Conference". I was listening to a writer from the Athletic, and he stated that the Big 10 took in Rutgers 10 years ago, because cable television numbers is what they were looking at, and now Rutgers wouldn't get a "sniff" because the conferences are looking at "streaming" numbers and that is totally different. Half of the Big, ACC, most of the PAC (only the LA schools would be invited now), and even perhaps of the SEC wouldn't get into those conferences now, but because they are already there, they have a home.

There is no one in the AAC, Mountain West, or any other conference that constitutes a membership in the current P5 (and as I said, half of the P5 teams would no longer be asked to join). It appears like conferences are pretty well set (maybe Notre Dame or maybe, and it would be a big maybe, BYU would stand a chance with their national numbers)

[pogo]

Money has got to be tight at most universities but I don't see how taking down the "addition" that became Cessna Stadium Which is the steel structure above the old concrete stadium would cost as much as many think. The price of aluminum from the seating in the steel portion as well as the steel itself I would think would be worth something. You can't tell me that companies doing business in Wichita don't have cranes that could be utilized to dismantle the steel portion are not available at little to no expense to the university. Surely there have to be engineers with some expertise to plan such an endeavor. Take it down to the bones and leave the concrete stadium behind. Still have seating for track and field events and remove an eyesore that once was Cessna Stadium.

[Kung Wu]

Money has got to be tight at most universities but I don't see how taking down the "addition" that became Cessna Stadium Which is the steel structure above the old concrete stadium would cost as much as many think. The price of aluminum from the seating in the steel portion as well as the steel itself I would think would be worth something. You can't tell me that companies doing business in Wichita don't have cranes that could be utilized to dismantle the steel portion are not available at little to no expense to the university. Surely there have to be engineers with some expertise to plan such an endeavor. Take it down to the bones and leave the concrete stadium behind. Still have seating for track and field events and remove an eyesore that once was Cessna Stadium.

Interesting!

[WuTheOne]

If you think the current Cessna is an eyesore, I have to assume you never saw Veteran's Stadium.

[WstateU]

If you think the current Cessna is an eyesore, I have to assume you never saw Veteran's Stadium.

C’mon man! Ross and I used to enjoy chasing ‘flappers’ at VS back in the day…

[Kung Wu]

C’mon man! Ross and I used to enjoy chasing ‘flappers’ at VS back in the day…

Did you ever catch any?

[WuTheOne]

I do remember one time at Veteran's Stadium that the Golden Girl's (feaured baton twirler with the marching band) costume burst in the back. She was able to grab it in front before it fell to an exposing position and ran off the field.

Here's how WSU FB died. This is from players in the program at that time. Boyd Converse was hired from Kilgore JuCo in TX, who had won the national JuCo title multiple years. Converse went to SEC schools who had players he wanted and asked those players how much it would take to make them unhappy at the school they were at.

That was my Fr year at WSU. Fr were ineligible to play varsity sports. The redshirts (transfers) and the Fr both beat the varsity by scores in the range of 45-0. Unfortunately, SEC schools weren't happy with how Converse had built that redshirt class and complained to the NCAA.

Other things happened. I can't remember if it was Miller Farr or Mel Farr who was living in Fairmount Towers when the USC coaching staff showed up and helped him carry all his belongings out of Fairmount and to the plane taking him to USC.

Then the NCAA investigation came around and an assistant, Eddie Kriewel, made a deal with the NCAA and the athletic department that he would be the next head coach if he became the primary witness against Converse. Kriewel had been an incredibly successful HS coach at Kapaun, but wa absolutely worthless when he didn't have players funneled to him.

The football program was hit with substantial penalties. Then when the basketball program had some minor violations, they got the book thrown at them because WSU was the most penalized NCAA program in the history of the NCAA and an example had to be made. That's what cost Carr, Levingston, and McDaniel a shot at a Natty - because the FB program had gotten WSU on probation and suspended from post season play.

[pogo]

A lot of that rings true. John Eckman who was older than me told several guys in our fraternity that he hated playing against the "redshirt team" because the were getting beat by the scores you talked about. Converse should have been at ku and he would have been wildly successful.

[pogo]

If you think the current Cessna is an eyesore, I have to assume you never saw Veteran's Stadium.

I have seen the old Veterans stadium and yes it was unsightly but a good sandblasting and paint it would improve its looks and the sight lines from 21st street by removing that distraction of Cessna stadium.

[shoxlax]

I have seen the old Veterans stadium and yes it was unsightly but a good sandblasting and paint it would improve its looks and the sight lines from 21st street by removing that distraction of Cessna stadium.

Bingo…the concrete itself, other than a few spots, is in decent shape and will get us a few more years.

[Ted Lasso's Neighbor]

I do remember one time at Veteran's Stadium that the Golden Girl's (feaured baton twirler with the marching band) costume burst in the back. She was able to grab it in front before it fell to an exposing position and ran off the field.

Here's how WSU FB died. This is from players in the program at that time. Boyd Converse was hired from Kilgore JuCo in TX, who had won the national JuCo title multiple years. Converse went to SEC schools who had players he wanted and asked those players how much it would take to make them unhappy at the school they were at.

That was my Fr year at WSU. Fr were ineligible to play varsity sports. The redshirts (transfers) and the Fr both beat the varsity by scores in the range of 45-0. Unfortunately, SEC schools weren't happy with how Converse had built that redshirt class and complained to the NCAA.

Other things happened. I can't remember if it was Miller Farr or Mel Farr who was living in Fairmount Towers when the USC coaching staff showed up and helped him carry all his belongings out of Fairmount and to the plane taking him to USC.

Then the NCAA investigation came around and an assistant, Eddie Kriewel, made a deal with the NCAA and the athletic department that he would be the next head coach if he became the primary witness against Converse. Kriewel had been an incredibly successful HS coach at Kapaun, but wa absolutely worthless when he didn't have players funneled to him.

The football program was hit with substantial penalties. Then when the basketball program had some minor violations, they got the book thrown at them because WSU was the most penalized NCAA program in the history of the NCAA and an example had to be made. That's what cost Carr, Levingston, and McDaniel a shot at a Natty - because the FB program had gotten WSU on probation and suspended from post season play.

Here's a site where one can read more about all of the infractions - https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/search/?...ate+University - you can click on the one with April 30, 1968, in the title and it takes you to a summary page and over to the right you should see a link to a pdf that's the public report, which goes into more details and is 4 pages. The site is useful in that you can search on any university, although sometimes the infractions are mixed in with the results. For example, some of the WSU infractions show up at the top of the list, but then you have to scroll down to find some of the others.

Here's another interesting site - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_W..._football_team - which has WSU's football team records over the years. The link I posted is for 1967, but if you scroll down you can click on other years.

Another interesting site is WSU's SOAR site - https://soar.wichita.edu/ - it allows you to search and find things that appeared in copies of the Sunflower and other WSU publications.

Finally, on Kriwiel , I couldn't tell if you meant he coached at Kapaun and then at WSU, but he didn't start coaching at Kapaun until after WSU . He actually coached at Wichita West HS for several years before his one year of head football coach at WSU. On a side note, he played QB at WSU in the late 1940's and was the qb when they went to 2 of their 3 bowls - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Kriwiel

[bleed yellow]

I drove through the campus yesterday, the old part is crammed together, the new part is definitely more spaced out and has a whole different vibe. Then there’s Cessna Stadium. Lol. I’m not even sure how they could go about demoing it without damaging any structures around it, but something needs to happen cause it looks so rough. The only way I can see them taking down is with heavy duty cranes that pull the stands down. I wonder if they would also have to close 21st during that process

[shoxlax]

I drove through the campus yesterday, the old part is crammed together, the new part is definitely more spaced out and has a whole different vibe. Then there’s Cessna Stadium. Lol. I’m not even sure how they could go about demoing it without damaging any structures around it, but something needs to happen cause it looks so rough. The only way I can see them taking down is with heavy duty cranes that pull the stands down. I wonder if they would also have to close 21st during that process

They would start at the N end at work their way S is what I’ve been told.

[Kung Wu]

I've seen enough movies to know we can just slap a chain gang together from the El Dorado prison, and give them a bunch of pickaxes and wheelbarrows and stuff, and water, and an occasional hot chick washing her car to look at, and it will be down cheap and easy!