Recent Comments
Just tell me when to enter panic mode and I'll do it.
I have to agree. Honestly, if anyone is getting into a pissing match over the exact dimensions of practice facilities, the whole recruiting process is doomed.
Get a great education. Get great coaching. Win championships through hard work. Prepare yourself for the pros or whatever career you want. If we can't win a recruit on these things, I don't know what we can do.
Alabama has the most locker room waterfalls in the FBS. Oregon has the most plasma TVs per square foot of wall space in the entrance to their sports complex. I guess everyone else loses.
Who said that? Honestly I don't know if they need 2 or 3 fields. I am definitely not a football coach. I just remember reading that Beamer wanted it in the forest because he wanted to keep the two outdoor fields.
I think one of the issues is that for the most part you play outdoors so you should practice out doors. On 2 full sized fields I imagine they can run 1rst/2nd team practices, position coaching for lower depth, and all manner of kicking. That may be limited with 2 short fields. Not sure.
But I don't think you want to always be practicing indoors though, so while the whole side opening up is pretty damn cool from a design point of view maybe not ideal in terms of football practice.
Like I said though, I really don't know. I just remember Beamer saying he wanted to keep the 2 outdoor fields full sized.
I'm sure if they find they need a full sized field, they will repaint the lines to give them a field. Reality is that in practice, they are broken down in positional drills for most of the time. So they are in small groups all across the field. If you've ever seen the team practice, you'll notice that they don't use even half of the space they currently have. So it's not going to impact them. You can negatively spin anything you want. To say that it will be used as a negative recruiting tactic is really stretching it.
Love everything you have done for us, Leal, but at this point, I want to see what the trio of Ford, Durkin, and McMillian can do for us.
This is going to be one hell of a QB battle going forward. 3 4* recruits who all excel at different areas while still being great QB prospects is extremely exciting. I can't wait to see what this class does for VT on the field. I just have the overwhelming belief that we're on the precipice of the next great chapter in VT football, and I can't wait for it to begin.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I am not the be all of design and planning. And I personally have seen design from world famous architects get absolutely ripped for planning issues. I totally agree with what you said.
I simply believe that once the steering committee had chosen the short list of locations there should have been a design process. This is a logical step by step procedure to ensure planners plan and designers design.
I should say also that in the end I very well could love the building on this site. I just don't like the decision process that led to it because I think we lost the opportunity to see creative solutions to the problem.
maybe we do know each other... but if you graduated in 1985 then perhaps not. I graduated in 1999.
Yeah, but just because they don't NEED 100 yards for practice doesn't mean they shouldn't have 100 yards for practice. If we go down that route, every single recruit we try to get will have opponents in their ear saying "how are you going to develop into the player you want to be when you won't even practice on a full sized field?" Now, that might be a fools argument, but it will be an easy sell to recruits, and it will work, because they simply won't know any better at that age. We'd be putting a bullseye on the biggest negative recruiting tactic to use against VT, even after Beamer retires, and I just don't see how that can be a good thing.
Within great parameters comes great design.
This is correct. I am just using a bridge a structure parking for the Cassell Lot option as an example of one solution that could have been made if actually designed. It was off the top of my head and not necessarily what I think should be done. My point is that they had already set the parameters by creating the short list of sites, have the campus master plan and the needs of the football program. So they should have given those to a design process to find solutions prior to making the final decisions. Who knows what great design could have come from those great parameters? We'll never know now because that opportunity is lost.
haha... obviously I am standing apart on the issue and that's fine. I just think making the decision without seeing what that decision is going to look like, or other viable options may look like, is poor decision making.
Ok- being "in the business" (all I'm saying at this point) I just see too many poor planning efforts by architects and not enough process leading by planners and LA's so I agree with you...
We may know each other after reading your post...
And your last sentence is spot on...
I am intrigued by the 2 full sized doors that is in the proposal. If that means we have 2 floor to ceiling field width doors that can open up the structure and have 2 full sized fields, then that could be a HUGE recruiting sell. If not, then this could end up being a pretty large blunder, as I don't see how having 2 half sized fields, which wouldn't allow you to effectively practice special teams due to the field simply not being long enough for kickoffs, is a good idea.
The thing is, they have said that there is no need for 2 full sized outdoor fields. During practice, they don't even use the whole 100 yards. Any long plays get whistled dead before they're finished. The only thing it hinders are kick returns which aren't often practiced at full speed I believe. Even so, they would just kick from one end of the field to the other. Or they just move indoors and use that new facility. It's not as big of an issue as you are making it out to be.
Do they need 3 full size fields? We know they need 2, now they have two and one if them is shaded and they are still adjacent. Win-win.
It's definitely a dark show, but one of the better ones I've seen. Like some of you have said, it can be slow at times, but then you have those intense scenes that come out of nowhere. I still would put Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones ahead of it, for now, but it has the potential to be better than both.
Bridges, structured parking......you must work with a lot of deep pocketed clients. This is effectively my money, I appreciate the restraint demonstrated in this site selection.
Within great parameters comes great design. If I set the program for this design process, it would have started with the efficiency of layout to benefit Coach Beamer and all future Head Coaches.
Yeah but, I'd like to see the type of cheer it creates, a la 3rd down key shaking.
Well I am a urban planner. I am also a registered architect and will be a registered landscape architect in about 8 months. I also own an award winning planning and design practice. I've planned entire new cities, designed portions of the world's tallest building and raised millions of money for wildlife conservation projects. All of these were solutions to complex land development issues.
You don't have to be magical to be good, or know that you need to actually see options to be able to evaluate them. And if you are in the planning/design field and not solving complex land development issues then you should go work for a better office. Finding solutions to planning issues is precisely what good design should be about. Not even attempting to create solutions is failure from the beginning.
I saw the report. I saw the evaluation matrix, I saw who was on the steering committee, and this site wasn't on the radar because the intent was to keep the outdoor practice fields in tact and not compromised.
I get that "it goes where athletics wants it" (except that it doesn't because they wanted it in the forest) but plain and simply it is extremely poor judgement to make a final decision without actually seeing any of the options they put forth. Every decision they made on those 15 sites was subjective because it relied on what each individual personally saw in their own mind. That's never a good way to solve complex land development issues no matter they are administrators or world famous designers.
As I've said before, I'm strongly in favor of anything that helps the Hokies, and strongly oppose anything that even has the appearance of hurting them.
"Instead a bunch of administrators selected sites and then appraised them on their own."
Incorrect.
^^^^ Bingo
"It actually is.
If you go N/S there are either 2 short fields and 1 inside full size field or, with doors open, 2 full fields part in and part out.
Go E/W there is one full size field outside and one inside."
There were 15+ sites studied all factoring in master plan, athletic facilities, views, parking- you name it. The practice field site was not even on the radar until football realized it was their only option to get the facility close to the outdoor fields without impacting the woods (and the university was not going there). Bottom line is that it goes where where athletics wants it.
Architects ain't planners, no matter how famous and they can't magically solve the complex land development issues in play here.
Would ACC be considered one of the top 4 conference? That is debatable. But if there is a requirement that your conference has to have 4 team playoff and you need at least 16 teams to even consider a playoff, then ACC and SEC are in the driver seat as they are closest to a 16 team conference.
How does he look when the pocket is breaking down? It looked like the other team was only bringing 2 guys on some of those blitzes, and he had all day back there. Do his fundamentals break down with a pass-rusher bearing down on him, or does either he step through the throw and take the hit or slide in the pocket?
Not just tears, but potential lawsuits as well as state and fed legislature involvement.
This is the first chance I've ever had to review some of McMillian's highlight tape and I'm pretty impressed. He's got a stronger arm than I'd thought. A couple of those throws were big-time throws, especially the one where he was rolling out to his left and threw a 50-yarder across his body.
With all the hype over Ford and Durkin (all of which is deserved, IMHO), McMillian seems to have been somewhat overlooked. But I think he may very well wind up being a serious factor in our QB situation.
Honestly, I don't think that there's another program in the country who signed a better group of QB recruits this year than Ford, Durkin & McMillian.
Well, again I really don't know. But for reference Alabama has 3 full length outdoor fields plus a 130 yard indoor practice facility. So that's 4.
VT now has 1 indoor and 1 convertible.
EDIT: BAMA also has 1 full length artificial turf field outdoors as well (with only one end zone though, pfft, losers). So that's actually 5.