Check out this tweet from Whit Babcock
Hi Jeff. No plans for "new". Love the home court advantage. Want to improve Cassell every yr. Hope for MAJOR renovation w in 5. #Hokies https://t.co/vigjZW9Stm— Whit Babcock (@WhitBabcock) January 4, 2017
Also, 4000 seat replacement in 2017:
.@kimascue We will be replacing approx 4000 seats in Cassell after May this year. Maroon, bigger, more comfortable. Guaranteed W's :)— Whit Babcock (@WhitBabcock) January 4, 2017
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Comments
Maybe they can get rid of that stupid wall and put the students right on top of the floor.
This would be great
Agreed. It's so far away from the floor!
To do that, they would need to "re-grade" the slope of those seats or put a "walkway" about 6 rows up would might defeat the purpose. The grade is too flat to carry those same seats down to "floor level", so you would have to remove 3/4 of the concrete risers, and eventually, you would not have the same pitch- which is fine I suppose... bottom line?- major renovation project to bring those seats any closer to the floor
Which... if you look at how Littlejohn Coliseum is built, I think we have a good template on how we can make that work. I'd re-grade the student section to drop a little steeper than it already does, have the seats go all the way to the floor, and then put in benches with no seatbacks all the way up.
A secondary option I've been thinking is to raise up the floor, and then cut back the first 2-3 rows of what would be the new ground level of Cassell. Bleacher those rows in for the students to rim the court, (at that point, the court should be raised enough the walls can be eliminated and we can put in seats for those rows. Now that you're done with that, you can replace the vaulted roof with one that can support weight, and then put a main videoboard over the court. Add in some suites along the sidelines that all open to a shared lounge area, with an expanded concourse that has its design influenced by the renovation of Merryman, and I think you have a winner. Oh, and completely re-do the exterior to play up on the Castle nickname with a heavy emphasis on Hokiestone.
Yes, it would be a major high dollar renovation, but that would suddenly make VT basketball's facilities a legitimate selling point to recruits and, paired with the Buzz Williams brand, should position us towards becoming a major power player in the sport.
I wonder if this is beyond what is currently planned/has been announced
Know where to find the current plans online?
I'm on mobile and cant access the vt.edu plans but this article talks about them and has a link at the bottom (I couldn't open on mobile).
http://virginiatech.sportswar.com/free-content/2016/04/14/virginia-tech-...
I know they have floated the idea of adding suites to the top of the sideline sections. There was a proposal image making its way around sometime either last summer or the summer before when they had their annual meetings. I can't seem to find them, though.
We missed the most important bit. He "guaranteed" wins because of big maroon seats. Power move right there.
I think Cassell has a lot of character so I hope they don't change too much...but get rid of that fucking ceiling fan.
Replace with disco ball
The ceiling fans were just added a few years ago and have helped a lot with how hot it gets in Cassell. They can probably be removed though if we upgrade the HVAC, which I hope is part of any major renovation.
To correct you: The BIG ASS FAN
True story...
Big Ass Fan company, who adds their logo (a donkey with the words Big Ass Fans) to everything they sell, offers a "no ass" package for schools, churches, and other buildings where the occupants might be sensitive to their good natured promotional materials. I think they even call it that...the No Ass Package.
Good.... I don't want to get rid of Cassell, but I definitely think there's an opportunity there to bring out the beast that it can be. I look at what Clemson just did with Littlejohn and would love to see something similar with Cassell.
Essentially, they removed and replaced the roof, and did major renovation to the bowl structure around the court, and turned it into a more modern facility. They also decreased capacity from 10k to around 8.5k, which also seems to be something that we could greatly benefit from.
Before:
After:
I love what they did at the ends of the court! While we were at the game Saturday, we talked about how awesome it would be to dedicate those two areas (going about half way up or so) to the students and get them down on the floor.
But I don't wanna reduce capacity, I wanna increase it.
Cassell sells out 2 times a year, for Duke/UNC, and for UVA.
Cassell has already sold out three times this season. Maine, Ole Miss, Duke. Last season, Florida State, UVA, UNC, Clemson, and WVU, still quite a few more opportunities this year.
Fairplay. I still maintain we don't need more seats though.
I agree. At 6'-8" tall, I usually don't go to the games even for free tickets just due to the discomfort experienced in those seats. I'd love to reduce capacity slightly and provide a more comfortable experience. Same thing with Lane west. I hate that side for the same reasons. Those fucking seat backs in front of me always end up in my crotch and my knees are in front of the old people in front of me. When you try to stand the whole game the old rich asses ask stadium staff to make you sit down. I've even had sheriff's deputies back up event staff, making me sit during a home game. Which is physically impossible for me in most of Lane west.
Sorry, /rant.
...are you Bucky Hodges?
Do you have any eligibility left?
Sorry that you've experienced stadium staff telling you to sit down. That happens because we aren't taught any better at first. My very first game (anOSU funny enough) they hadn't told anyone that standing was allowed so I (to my embarrassment) told some people to sit down. Ultimately I did some research and found no-where where patrons have to sit. They REALLY need to be telling stadium staff this. It drives me crazy how *cough cough* inefficiently (being really nice here) it's run from inside the stadium...
My own little rant to go with yours... /rant
Checking in at 6'4" and I can't imagine how bad it would be being any taller and having to sit in Cassell seats. Airplane/Bus/Train seats are the only less roomy/less comfortable seats that I've experienced
Those seats are uncomfortable at 6'1", not sure I can imagine taller.
Mark Berman thinks you're just whining to whine and that's when you know it's bad...
So... short people do in fact, have a reason?
I must be really tired or I am not seeing that much of a difference? I think their before picture is still much, much better than where Cassel sits in terms of getting students closer to the floor. It looks like people could still sit on bleachers closer to the basket.
It would be fun to see the pep band closer to the floor.
I just want them to fix the god awful audio system, it's just so grating on the ears.
Whit has literally never said/done anything that has made me unhappy. This is looooong overdue.
Band closer to the floor, student section seats replaced with bleachers please
Moat with drawbridge. I see you, Whit.
When Greenberg was here, there was talk of getting a center hung scoreboard. Anyone know if that's still on the table?
I have heard from my engineering parents that the supports aren't able to support any kind of center hung fixture. Which is why concerts can't happen in there either -- no light setup is able to be hung.
Someone floated the idea last year of removing seats in the corners and making some sort of box area. The sides/front could be covered with screens in multiple corners. I forget which arena/coliseum this was based on.
VCU's Siegel Center i believe is what that would be based off of. I cannot find any good pictures of it, but the corners have what is like bar seating with personal service that fits I think about 8-12 people. And then one of the sidelines way up is the club/box seating. It is about the size of the old press box above the team sideline in Cassell.
Remind me next VCU home game I can take some pictures to put here for reference
I think it is actually UofR's Robins Center you are thinking of:
I'll send David Wilson up to verify.
I seem to remember going to one concert @ Cassell when I was in school, Molly Hatchet. There may have been another one, too. Details of these kinds of things are a bit cloudy.
I went to that concert too! Charlie Daniels Band was the accompanying act and Devil Went Down to Georgia & Flirtin With Disaster were big hits at the time.
'BUUDD-UP Mmmm BUP BUP, Yeah-aa.'
Yes, thank you! CDB is who I was trying to remember. For some reason, I was separating CDB from Molly Hatchet in my memory as separate concerts.
Also saw Toto when in school, but that was in Burruss.
Man, somebody else who saw Toto and Red rider at Burrus Hall. Tee shirt I got was poorly made and faded so it said 1383 not 1983.
I went to a lot of concerts in the 70's, so I don't what changed. I know the equipment is better.
They probably didn't use a flying light or sound rig. Those are both standard now for an act playing in an arena.
I think Cassell is way overdue for a facade update. It's ugly and doesn't fit in with campus at all. I mean, shouldn't Cassell look like a castle? Put some Hokie Stone and towers/turrets/whatever, some big wooden doors, renovate the front lobby, hang some lights, make it look medieval and majestic like the West entrance to Lane.
A while back, someone on TKP did a sketch of this, where the concourse was expanded and there were four towers, each at the corners of Cassell.
It definitely needs a portcullis.
That's a hell of a way to enter a basketball game.
This is an artist's rendering of the first event held in Cassell after its completion.
](https://postimg.org/image/3nn1slqsx/))
VT defeated WVU by a score of 1 dead to 39 dead. A scroll was found quoting the VT coach, Bruce Max Smithius; "VT has evolved with the bronze age where as our opponents tonight (WVU) were floundering in the stone age wielding stones tethered to sticks. When asked why the WVU sticks kept breaking, Smithius said that "left up to the WVU engineering department they were not capable of carring the dynamic load of their stone heads"
VT next faces the University of Minnesota. This should be a tough one considering that they have discovered lost camp sites of Vikings and own that technology.
And just in. Gladiators Hogious, Maximus D Evanus and Fordium Truckus have declared and are going Pro. They sail for Rome next week and are bulking up on fruit to avoid the scurvey. This could prove to be a huge road block to next season. Each claiming 42, 48 and 65 deaths respectively.
For more info on this and upcoming games contact me at imbitterus scroll at your local vomitorium.
This makes a lot of sense to me. You should write more, I really enjoy history.
RIhanna has a suggestion about how we can improve Cassell.
From last year
Based on where those are... are those Tim Sands's seats?
What would be really cool is if they sell the old Cassell seats to Hokies, albeit not as cool as having like an original seat from Fenway or Yankee Stadium, but to a Hokie, it'd be pretty cool to have a pair of seats for a man cave.
I would buy a pair.
Ah yes to relive the days of jabbing my elbows into my roommates because the current seats have a very narrow definition of personal space.
Just kidding.
Though for some reason after reading your 5 word sentence all I could imagine was being elderly with my Hokie wife, walking up to those memorable chairs in our home and saying "let's sit in them for old times sake." We then sit down and as my elbow nearly cracks her rib as we take our seats, I immediately regret my decision. I then realize I can no longer remove myself from that position as my posterior has grown three sizes too large.
Ah the good old days.
Had a hard time reading your post, laughed so hard, started to cry!
Since you're elderly in this hypothetical, you really should take those old knees you've had replaced and put them up behind the seats too so that when you do sit in them you also get a nice, nostalgic concussion from the constant knees to the back of the head
Coach K needs to buy a pair. Oh, wait, you're talking about chairs.
The original question tweet is no longer available, but Whit's response when asked if the seats would be sold or auctioned back in May:
Nice find - thanks NavyEMC!
True story: I emailed Whit to tell him he should sell off some of the athletic gear like they do at UNC and other schools and that with VT's fanbase it would definitely sell and be a fun way to connect the team and fans. He wrote me back and said he is looking into that to.
They sell off a ton of gear at the surplus auctions...
It needs to expand beyond that. To be better advertised and open to people who can't travel to BlacksburgZ.
Raise the court to eliminate the wall between it and the student section
Add folding bleachers in order to make the floor larger for other events (Maybe enough to add Hockey???)
Remove the weird corners
Replace and raise the roof (I hope they can keep the wooden arches, I personally love that look)
Add a small upper deck on the ends with ribbon board displays
Add boxes on the sides
Hmmm I like this idea... lets take it a step further...
I love the idea of putting a second deck above the baselines. Maybe we can use that for the seats we have to remove to create luxury boxes. I like the position you have yours, but I may take out a couple rows all the way across to allow for the boxes to come out into the arena, with box seating.
As much as I like the unique atmosphere the barrel ceiling gives Cassell, it also makes it seem like a smaller venue than it really is. I would say, if we're going to replace the roof, we put up one that is load bearing, and hangs lower to the stands to make the place feel a little more claustrophobic. That said, another avenue I would explore is, try to keep the vaulted ceiling, but reinforce it to make it load bearing to take on a overhead scoreboard, and potentially putting in a big glass wall open to a completely revamped entry area kind of like how NC State did with their recent renovation of Reynolds.
In this scenario, I would like to be able to rip out the first 2-3 rows around the court and put in bleachers for the students. Essentially, take out as many rows as needed to allow the first row of permanent seats to not be blocked by the standing students. Then you could ring the court with students, and free up more good seats for paying customers along the baseline.
Cann't wait, Buzzketball and Women's bank deserve an upgrade to the Cassell.
Not to be a buzzkill, but I seriously doubt Buzz will still be here in 5 years. If he is, that would be great; I just would not hold my breath, especially with the way his buyout is structured. The good news is that even if Buzz left tomorrow, he's already successfully resurrected the program, and Whit has proven to be tremendous in identifying and hiring great coaching fits for Tech.
I only see Buzz leaving for Texas/Texas A&M/Oklahoma/Oklahoma St. He come here in the first place because he wanted to cement himself as a P5 head coach assuming that the P5 will really start to break away from the field in the near future. Where better to do that than the ACC?
Well, he came here because he needed out from Marquette (for non-performance reasons) and Tech was in the right place at the right time with the right AD to make it happen. Whether a program is P5 or not is everything for a football program, but it's virtually a non-factor for basketball (case in point: 2 of the last 3 national champs are non-P5).
The longer Buzz is here, I hope he becomes more and more invested in Tech and Blacksburg. On the other hand, he's now proven his ability as a coach in two ways-- he can takeover a successful program and sustain/build it, or he can takeover a bad program and be a program builder. That makes him a possible candidate for just about any high-level job in the country. I'm not saying he's looking to get out as soon as possible or that he'd leave for just any school, but, while I agree the four programs you mentioned are all logical fits, IMO that list of possible schools he might leave for is a lot longer than four.
I'm not just making up the P5 business: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/buzz-williams-left-marquette-for-virginia-tech-and-many-wonder-why/2015/03/09/
If a blue blood wants Buzz then they'll probably get him regardless of conference, and I listed those 4 schools because they're major brands in his home region, but if a job doesn't meet either of those criteria then I'll bet on 'stay' every time.
The problem is... what blue blood would be looking at him right now?
Duke, UNC, UCLA, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan State. When I think of the blue bloods across college basketball, those are the kinds of teams I think of. Which of those would give Buzz a serious look right now? Should any of those programs decide that they need to make a switch at the top, do you see any of them looking towards Buzz? I don't. Those programs are going to look to grab a coach who has had proven success at winning conferences at the Power 5 level or getting to the Final Four at the mid major level. If I'm Michigan State and Izzo retires after this season, I'm calling the likes of Jay Wright, Leonard Hamilton, and Tony Bennett to take over, because those coaches have proven themselves capable of sustaining the level of success that those programs expect.
As good as Buzz is for us and has been both here and at Marquette, I just don't see his resume as being something that would attract the serious consideration from the major players that would pull him out of Blacksburg.
I don't mean to imply that he would actually get a look right now. I'm just laying out the hypothetical scenarios under which I think he would leave.
Gotcha
Yeah, I guess my point is that, if Buzz is able to build his resume here at VT to the point where we are trying to fend off the likes of UCLA and Indiana from hiring him away, he has raised our profile up to the point where Whit Babcock should be able to secure whoever he wants to replace him. If that happens, I won't be worried about the future of VT basketball. The only way that doesn't happen is if Buzz bolts for more a decent but non blue-blood job before then, which I don't see happening simply because of the position we are in now. We're paying him a boatload of money, we're essentially letting him run the program with no interference from the top, we're providing him everything he is asking for, and his contract is ridiculously favorable to him. Oh, and he gets all of this in the ACC in the heart of the ACC recruiting region. Now I'm not saying he won't leave, but its unlikely he'll find a sweeter deal out there than what he has here.
sweater deal is a horse of another color
Duke and to a lesser extent UNC are unlikely to go outside the family with their next hires.
UCLA obviously has the history but based on what they pay their coaches, I don't see this one as big of a threat as others.
Kansas, UK, Indiana, Michigan State would all give Buzz a look. Programs like Louisville, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Connecticut, Georgetown, etc. would all be about right.
I agree Wright and Bennett would be on short lists for any top tier jobs. Bennett could basically have any job he wants and is probably the only non-Duke guy I could give even the slightest of chances of being Coach K's successor.
I wonder how long the Shaka Smart experiment will last at Texas. They are a couple games in to conf play and are 7-8. If that style does not translate I wonder how patient they'll be. Could definitely see Buzz being interested in going to Austin.
Possibly, though I would again have to wonder why Texas would lean towards Buzz over some of the other coaches out there. Its starting to look like they got burned by the Shaka experiment, so I could see them wanting to go to a coach who has had steady sustained success at the major conference level. I could see someone like Leonard Hamilton being their #1 target in a situation like that.
I'm not sure what surprises me more about that paragraph: the fact WaPo so badly butchered the spelling of Roccaforte or that they didn't point out that Buzz was hired in March 2014, which was about 5 months before the NCAA voted on the Power 5 autonomy measure.
I have some pretty good #sauces on what actually happened, and it had nothing to do with conference affiliation.
To your last point though, maybe we're saying the same thing. I agree that I don't see him leaving for a rebuild at a non-brand school (i.e. he won't replicate his move to come here), but there are a ton of higher profile programs where I could see him going, with the four you originally mentioned a small subset.
Well, I can't argue against your #sauces, but when Buzz came to Raleigh for a Hokie Club event about a month after he was hired, he explicitly told us the main reason he made the move is that he thought the groundwork was in place for the Power 5 to split away from the Group of 5 to create its own division, and he didn't want to be left behind.
Now, maybe there were other circumstances behind the scenes that led to him leaving Marquette for VT, but those were the words he said to us that night.
Fair enough.
I do... I don't see him being here 10 years from now, but I do see him here 4 or 5 years from now. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who will spend all the time and energy to build up a program only to abandon it right as he gets it to where it wants it to be. He'll want to enjoy the fruits of that labor a little, and then leave to the next stage. He's also not going to want to leave a program with a foundation that crumbles just because he left. He wants to set up something with stayng power.
We can debate whether the opportunity he wants will come in 2 years or 5 years, but his next job will likely be the one he tries to ride out for the rest of his career. With that in mind, I would never expect him to pass when the opportunity comes up because of what it means for Tech or because of what he might have at Tech the following year.
Hopefully he sticks around Blacksburg for a long time, and I'd be as happy as anyone if you remind me 5 years from now that hey Buzz is still here. But IMO expecting him to be here more than a few years, is setting yourself up for disappointment. My o/u on his Tech tenure has always been 4 years, with anything over that being gravy. I'll enjoy his time here for however long that is and then trust Whit to hire the right guy to take that baton and climb then next rung on the ladder.