Well if he did go to UT initially, there is nothing written about it which is fine with me. Well I didn’t see it on his Wikipedia page.
No worries. Mack has said in public interviews that he played for UT on the 1969 National Championship team coached by Darrell Royal and rode the bench that season.
Releasing this news IS fundraising. Basically saying “y’all want to compete but you don’t want to give and then this is what you will get. But there’s still time for better…”
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That failed when Maggard tried to do it and back then we were on an upswing with briles. This construction was proposed last summer so it’s pretty evident that there’s very little support for the Athletics program.
I wonder if the NIL collectives, giving money directly to the players instead of to the Athletic program is going to have ripple effects.
Now boosters are investing in the temporary part of athletics, the players, instead of the permanent part, the facilities.
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Big ticket items, like the Football Facility, need BMDs and corporate contributors to really make the needle move. That’s everywhere. Small businesses and individual donors get a quicker, more tangible benefit by connecting with players through NIL.
My hope is that once the B12 football season starts, some large Houston corporations will jump on board to show their civic pride and donate big dollars. I hope.
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Since we get to do this only once I say go big.
The Oil & Gas Industry just had a big year. ExxonMobil has a huge campus in Spring. Lots of others in Greater Houston.
Go for naming rights. Go for it all !
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The bitterness of a less appealing site would linger longer than the happiness of lower price.
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Yeah, they need to do this right. Don’t screw this up. Please.
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In my view, the bigger we go, the longer the road is to obsolescence, the longer the lifespan, and the longer we’ll have to go before we have to spend even more money to update it.
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Well stated.
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You have this absolutely incorrect. Maggard failed because he shot small with just an end zone redo for Robertson. The feed back was virtually unanimous that it wasn’t ambitious enough. A few years later we had TDECU.
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Without looking up the timeline it was more than a few years between the end zone facility proposal and TDECU. The end zone facility was limited by budget, just like the discussion for this new building. Maggad wanted to push it through so we could have something new within the budget but it was ugly. Same as what pez is proposing with this new building.
Yes, let’s not build something obsolete and wait until there’s cash. But there’s apparently no support from the alumni or stakeholders to step up and pay for it.
Endzone Facility was talked about in 2006, officially proposed in 2007. New stadium project was announced in 2010. Opened TDECU in 2014.
To @HWSCoog point, there was this article I found about Maggard saying he wanted to go back to the drawing board and look at doing more to all of Robertson Stadium.
And then 2 days later…
Wow! It really was a few years later. Those were good times with our upward trajectory.
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From what I heard, that is not exactly the way it went down. In any event, it was a sad day when Uncle Dave left us.
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But Coogfans rail on Pez when he says things that indicate support that’s not too deep. Lord thank you for BMDs, especially TF.
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I dont think it is a lack of support. UH could of not picked a worse time to do fundrasining finanancing and builing of the facility. Inflation is through the roof, building costs have sky rocketed, and then there are those alumni who are not Fertittas who would of donated but with the stock market uncertainty, loss of overall income due to inflation increase without salaries and wages increasing it takes an effect. UH was about two years late on starting this fundraising campaign. If they had started it pre-covid when the market was booming more alumni I believe will be donating. As others suggested UH needs to go to businesses and corporations that have not been effected by the economy as in oil and gas and look for funds their along with naming rights. We neeed to make sure this is done right. Pez seems to not be the best when it comes to getting businesss and corporate sponsors for fundraising and focus mostly on alumni
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I’m telling you first hand it was the opposite of lack of support. It was that nobody wanted to give millions for an old stadium with a nice end zone and all the premium seats being located there.
And yes, there were years between the two because with large scale fundraising you do not go public until you have a huge percentage in hand. UH was working quietly behind the scenes for years.
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Well Pez went public without having a large portion in hand for this new ops facility. I just dont think is the best when it comes to the money, donor, and financial side of the job. All the fundraising for the recent projects were done prior him coming to UH.