New indoor practice facility brings CSU up to speed

It is said that in college athletics, there is a vicious cycle of prosperity that goes as follows; an athletics program needs to be good to get money and needs money to be good.

For CSU football, the last four years have been filled with little of either. But hope, in the form of a $20 million indoor practice facility and athletics training center, is on the way.

CSU’s record over the last four years speaks for itself. The Rams are 11-20 in conference play and 17-31 overall. In addition to the Rams’ ineptitude on the field, the athletic department checkbooks aren’t exactly brimming with optimism either.

The CSU athletic department has spent and made less money than its conference cohorts in the same period as its revenue athletic teams have failed to do almost anything except garner national headlines for chemical bombs and bank fraud.

To put it frankly, CSU football needs a dramatic resurgence to save its prospects of having any legitimate chance to ever have talented high school athletes ever want to play their college ball at Hughes. But a last second Hail Mary has been constructed by Athletic Director Paul Kowalczyk to save the house that Sonny built.
 
In April, the athletic department unveiled its savior. Construction on a $13 million indoor practice facility, which will adjoin to a $7 million academic training center, is scheduled to get underway in the next few weeks. The facility will finally make CSU look like a legitimate football program to recruits that see nothing but shiny new facilities at Utah, BYU and Wyoming among others.

However, there is one minor, rather inconsequential problem to building the facility. CSU can’t afford it.
 
When the plans were unveiled a month ago, Athletic Director Paul Kowalczyk said that approximately $1.75 million had already been raised for the project. That leaves the Rams about $18 million short of the final price tag.

Now, any fan will admit the CSU football needs money to compete in Division-I football, let alone a top-eight conference such as the Mountain West. But how many of those fans would be willing to pony up tens of thousands of dollars each to make the Rams competitive?

Assuming the construction goes off without a hitch, the facility, which includes an indoor football field, a track and basketball courts, will be ready for the fall 2009 campaign. When completed, it will mean that all Mountain West Conference schools have some sort of IPF, bringing CSU up to the level of its competition, at least in practice facilities.
Whether or not the IPF will deliver bowl victories remains to be seen. But one thing is clear. Without the facility CSU most likely would not be able to compete with its in-conference or in-state brethren.

For Ram fans, Kowalczyk’s Hail Mary is all they have left to compete.