OGDEN -- Being able to run the ball inside and outside the tackles is an advantage to any football team.
Being able to train indoors and outdoors is another advantage, one that may become available to Weber State's football program in the future through a partnership with Weber County.
The county is in the process of designing a new $7.5 million expansion to The Ice Sheet, which through an agreement with Weber State University, would include a second-story indoor practice facility for football and other WSU sports like soccer and softball.
The Ice Sheet, which hosted curling in the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, is northwest of the Dee Events Center on the Weber State campus.
By partnering with Weber County, Weber State will be able to build an indoor facility with an approximately 48-by-60 yard turf surface with a 28-foot ceiling for about $3 million, which the school is in the process of fundraising. That's about $7 million cheaper than if the university were to build a standalone facility, WSU athletics director Jerry Bovee said.
"It gives us the ability to have something we wouldn't have been able to do on our own," he said. "It's a huge upside for us to be able to partner with the county."
In March, the Weber County Commission approved a $455,000 contract with Salt Lake City-based FFKR Architects Inc., the original architects of The Ice Sheet, to design an expansion of the facility, adding a second NHL-sized rink on the ground floor to ease the user pressure and increase the capacity for hockey, curling, figure skating and open skating.
While Weber County is leading on the project, Weber State will have input on the design of the indoor practice turf area, which will include offices, a training room, storage areas and a small weight room. The indoor facility may also provide an area to host community events.
"Obviously our part of it is going to be to raise some money for the project, which we're working on now, and the county is really pushing to move forward," Bovee said.
"Both sides (of the partnership) are moving along in our planning as though we're getting closer to breaking ground in the fall, but there's still a lot of things ahead. To say it's a done deal, I think that would be premature, but right now things look very good and we're all hopeful that we'll continue to move toward breaking ground in the fall."
With an estimated construction time of a year, that would give Weber State access to the facility for the winter of the 2013-14 athletics season.
WSU will look to raise money for its part of the agreement through naming rights and athletics department donors.
"We're going to go out and raise money and name this facility and get some partners on board," Bovee said. "We're hoping to raise $3 million dollars for our floor. I've got to put turf in it; we're fine-tuning some design right now with the footprint we have. It's early stages, it's exciting and it's something that will really help move our program along as we continue to build facilities and shore up opportunities."
An indoor practice facility would help Weber State's recruiting efforts in a big way, Bovee said.
"By building all of our facilities up, it helps in the recruiting process to attract a higher level athlete," he said. "Specifically for this facility, it allows you to bring in athletes and they get a sense of how serious you are about your product. For us to be able to house them in a facility out of the weather in some of those key sports, it just sends the right message.
"It also helps us to win a little on the recruiting side with other programs in the Big Sky that may not have those types of opportunities in a cold weather climate."
Idaho State and Northern Arizona both play football in an indoor arena but none of the teams in the Big Sky Conference with an outdoor stadium also have an indoor practice facility.
"It definitely sets us apart in what we're trying to do here," Bovee said.
none of the teams in the Big Sky Conference with an outdoor stadium also have an indoor practice facility.
"It definitely sets us apart in what we're trying to do here," Bovee said.
Next step, the whole plan to build a north endzone plaza/ticket office and permanent concessions and new bathrooms as well, Stewart Stadium in a few years is gonna be a pretty nice facility...........now if only we could fill it
There have been a lot of upgrades to Weber State's facilities over the past few years, and Im lovin it.
Maybe you will fill Stewart Stadium some day. According to enrollment projections presented to the Board of Regents in March, the Commissioner of Higher Education expects Weber State to have about 36,000 students by 2020. All you would have to do is get half of them to attend.
pretty sweet and nice forward thinking by someone! Definitely an advantage for the Wildcats.
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Hugh White, 1801
