Dave in Green

Sounds like a classic good news - bad news scenario. You never like to lose depth, even from a deep team. But Darryl Roberts has really earned his sholarship.

I'm still open to considering all possibilities, both on and off campus. When we see details of actual proposals, we'll all be in a better position to make informed evaluations of the best available option. Until then, I'll continue to resist the rush to premature evaluation.

If I understand correctly, the difference is that, unlike a potential downtown basketball/multipurpose facility, sharing the downtown baseball field would be a temporary solution until a new baseball field could be created on an existing or new on-campus location. This is another creative concept for building a new basketball arena on campus that deserves consideration. Ideally, the longterm solution for baseball would also result in a new, improved facility on campus. But it's pretty clear that you can't keep creating newer, larger, facilities on limited, existing UA real estate. The campus needs to be expanded in an intelligent way that benefits both UA and the City of Akron.

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing. That would be a good location for an on-campus arena.

One thread on this subject has already been closed for the same reason. If threads are locked every time one person is perceived to be stirring up problems, then what is there to stop one person from ending any discussion they want on Zips Nation simply by deliberately stirring up problems?The proper way to deal with a problem like this is to hold individuals responsible for what they post here. The overwhelming number of civil posters on these forums should not have their freedom to discuss appropriate subjects infringed upon by the inappropriate behavior of a single poster.

When no progress is being made, there may be a reason.

There's no reason not to simultaneously discuss how to improve the current facility to draw more fans, how to expand the facility if more fans start showing up, and how and where to build an even larger future facility if the program's popularity continues to rise. All three require advance planning, with an all-new facility requiring the most advanced planning. So it's never too early to start talking about it.

In general, insider financial irregularities tend to involve well-connected business investors, who also happen to be more likely to be conservative Republicans than liberal Democrats. That doesn't necessarily mean that Democrats as a group are more honest than Republicans, but just that their irregularities tend to show up in different areas. A good system of checks and balances ensures that each side keeps a close eye on the other in their particular problem areas.

Casual discussions about the various merits of multiple good options generally do not generate bitter contentiousness unless someone tries to turn it into a do-or-die battle. The main area of disagreement here appears to be the concept that one of the solutions is so vastly superior to the other that a crusade must be waged to prevent the "wrong" decision from being made. War rarely achieves all the goals for which it was initiated, but it always produces collateral damage.I think the biggest area of agreement in this discussion is that most of us seem to be open to either an on-campus or close-to-campus downtown location as long as it's done right. It's not worth fighting over.

Over the years I've witnessed many thousands of firefights on hundreds of different internet forums. Shooting back at someone you perceive fired the first shot rarely results in conflict resolution. It usually just escalates until the moderators lock the thread.There are two good ways to deal with offensive posts and offensive posters. One is to use the Report button and let the moderators handle it. Another is to add someone you consider to be a serial troublemaker to your Ignored Users list. If you no longer see posts by an ignored user, then for you they no longer exist. End of problem.

I've just spent a lot of time examining this area using the Bird's Eye view in Bing Maps ( http://www.bing.com/maps ). Just go to the site, enter Akron, OH, as the location, zoom in on the area and go to the Bird's Eye option. This gives the closest, most detailed aerial view I've been able to find. There are even controls on the left side of the screen to change the direction from which you're looking at an area.In the other thread I questioned whether it would be feasible to eliminate the Mill Street bridge and close Mill Street between Lincoln and Summit Streets. On closer examination from the Bird's Eye view, I now think this is not such a bad idea. It really opens up the footprint for a major facility in this area, and shifting traffic to Market Street does not appear to be such a problem. Ironically, in the Bird's Eye view photos, there is virtually no traffic to be seen on Mill Street! Now I know this isn't always the case. But it would be no problem to route Mill Street through traffic to Market Street via College and Summit Streets. Heading east on Mill Street takes you to Market in a few blocks, anyway. There would certainly be a major cost savings in not having to rebuild and maintain the Mill Street bridge over the RR tracks when there is already a major bridge on Market Street just one block to the north. A pedestrian bridge from the campus to this area would be much less costly.This is all starting to make a lot of sense as long as there aren't already plans in place to use this real estate for other projects.

At the time the JAR was built, they tried to put too many eggs in one basket and got a building that was inadequate in all aspects from offices to seats to classrooms. For the cost a facility like this will command, I think we can assume it will be a multi-use facility. The building will need to be used often so good programming for the venue is essential. I hope we're far enough away from the Q to not clash for events. UA couldn't program EJ and The Civic properly so I believe it needs to be a separate group. I think we can also assume that if we need assistance from the city, the facility will need to be on the polsky side of campus. Summit County could also consider the facility a county-wide asset and assist in building. The county might want to push such a building closer to the Knight Convention Center (Quaker Square). At that location UA could maximize the hotel with the arena next door. Does that location have room for an arena and parking? There might be better locations no one has mentioned yet. My preferred location would be the Central-Hower site. It would help by getting high-schoolers off the campus and out of the student union where there have been altercations, and transform the North side of campus. I think we could also have a great parking situation there with the North Deck and large footprint for parking on site. The two obstacles I see for this location are APS(big obstacle) and money. I don't think that UA will be able to finance an arena without the city or county. Are there any more big donors that could make this happen?Be creative, have fun with it and tell us where you would like to see any future arena located.OK, my personal preference is to have a first class multipurpose facility because I would be a customer for both basketball games and concerts. For at least some of those events, I'd want to combine the experience with dinner at one of Akron's downtown restaurants, as I do when I attend a concert at the Q and have dinner in Cleveland. So ideally any new multipurpose facility would be reasonably close to good parking and good restaurants.I also believe that having lots of enthusiastic students in attendance is a key part of the college basketball experience. So I would not favor an off-campus location more than a couple of blocks from campus that would discourage students from attending. That pretty much defines an area east of Main between Market and Exchange.If it's closer to Market than Exchange, it would be far enough from the downtown restaurants I frequent that I'd probably end up having to get in the car and drive anyway, especially in the middle of the winter if my wife was with me. So there'd be no big advantage to me over the current JAR location in terms of having to drive between dinner and an event.But it does appear from looking at satellite images of downtown Akron that the area just northeast across the street (Mill) from the Knight Convention Center just might have room for a 10,000-seat facility and parking deck that could serve both venues. This just might be the best location in terms of getting full support from UA, the city and the county. I don't think there is any "perfect" location that will please all the people all the time. But this appears to me right now to be the best compromise location of any mentioned so far for a downtown multipurpose facility that would be convenient to campus. So I could support this location as long as no one comes up with any major negatives.

I can't answer the question without knowing more specific parameters. If it's to be primarily a basketball facility, it would probably be better somewhere on campus. If it's to be a multi-purpose facility, also hosting concerts, I think it might be better right on the border of the campus and downtown.

Opinions aside, what we all know for a fact is that the other major thread on this subject was recently shuffled off to the garbage dump because it was starting to stink up the place. It wasn't the opinions on the subject that ruined the thread. The opinions on the subject at hand were interesting and worth reading. It was the belligerent and combative attitude that stunk.We all have a chance now to make an attitude adjustment before this thread is hauled off to the dump to join the other one. If this thread goes, then there will probably be others. At that point, I think the majority of civil forum members might support getting rid of serial troublemakers rather than otherwise good threads.As far as identifying troublemakers, I'd suggest starting with the Wikipedia definition of a troll:In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or collaborative content community with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

I think a good starting place for this is last season's final Pomeroy ratings, which ranked NC State #79 and UA #92. That's close enough that on a neutral court the lower-ranked team would stand at least a fair chance of winning. Then you have to factor in the team changes between last season and this. We know the Zips lost a key experienced player in Nate Linhart, and are gaining a key young player in Zeke Marshall. We also know that many of last year's inexperienced Zips players should show improvement over last season. It would take a similar analysis of NC State players to start making educated guesses about the two teams' relative strengths this season compared to where they finished last season.

One of the reasons that I participate here but not on other sports forums is because Zips Nation is dedicated to maintaining civil discussion. So I am naturally in favor of strict enforcement of the basic rules of civility on these boards.It only takes one person to start a "name calling and hair pulling" battle. But it requires everyone's cooperation to end it for good and return Zips Nation to its normal civil atmosphere. It's tempting to want to respond in kind to insulting comments. But the solution to reducing incivility is not to generate more incivility.I believe that the best way to eliminate the few isolated cases of incivility on Zips Nation is to use the "Report" button and let the moderators handle it before an otherwise civil thread devolves into general name calling and hair pulling.

Valpo hasn't gotten a lot of respect on Zips Nation, primarily I think because they just happened to have an off year last season when the Zips played them. Over the last 14 years, Valpo has averaged more than 20 wins per season and earned a NCAA Tournament berth 7 times -- a feat we Zips fans can only dream of.Valpo has added a lot of firepower to their 2009-10 roster, and will be tougher than the team that beat the Zips last season.

Good links, UADavid.UA's arena commitment to the City of Akron, as described in the AkronNewsNow story, fits well with point 6 in UA's stated goals:Create a strong physical, programmatic, and symbolic linkage between the campus and the adjoining community to stimulate mutually supportive and beneficial interaction.It appears as if those who favor harsh segregation of UA from the city with something akin to a Berlin Wall are tilting at windmills.

The Zips have 0-2 career records against both Drake and NC State, so we still have something to prove before getting too cocky.The important thing is to continuously increase strength of schedule and reduce the number of cupcakes. Neither Drake nor NC State have been consistently dominant in their respective conferences. But the ACC is obviously superior to the MAC, and the MVC is at least somewhat stronger overall. So even fair teams from these conferences will provide better than average challenges as the Zips continue to grow a more competitive non-conference schedule.

Games against the likes of NC State and Drake are good for the Zips anywhere, anyhow.

Smart move. Now UA can take its time in conducting a thorough search. While the story doesn't say so, I would imagine that Yurachek remains a candidate for permanent AD. If he ends up getting it, the interim work will give him a running start.

Odd coincidence, but if you look up photos of UMass players Matt Pennie and Matt Glass, they happen to resemble Linhart and McNees.

Behavior is the key word here. Some people are prone to bad behavior without drinking alcohol. But an indisputable fact about alcohol is that it tends to reduce human inhibitions. So some people who might otherwise be well-behaved will have their inhibitions against bad behavior reduced after consuming alcoholic beverages. When you put too many people with reduced inhibitions against bad behavior into a confined area, bad things are more likely to happen.Part of the price we pay for living in civilized society is that we must agree to abide by rules designed to minimize bad behavior, even though we may believe that those rules are not necessary for us personally. In the case of this forum, moderators deal with bad behavior by summarily deleting offensive posts. In the case of inhibition-reducing substances such as alcohol, society comes up with a variety of rules to try to reduce the negative effects on the general public.The rules may not always seem fair, and we should never give up on trying to make the world a better place. But the right of everyone to consume as much alcohol as they wish at a football game is not anywhere near the top of the list of the world's priorities.

There are three general groups: non-drinkers, responsible drinkers and irresponsible drinkers. The first two can usually get along just fine with each other. The third group is the one that usually initiates most of the problems.Personally, I fall into the second group (responsible drinkers). Over the years I've found through many experiences that light drinking can enhance a social experience, but being surrounded by a bunch of sloppy drunks greatly diminishes my enjoyment of any activity. So I now always make it a point to avoid any activities where sloppy drunks are likely to be found.My first preference would be to have beer readily available for those who can handle it (in reality, not in their altered minds). But that creates the age-old problem of trying to differentiate the responsible from the irresponsible. Full-scale riots have been triggered when authorities try to apprehend the most egregious drunken troublemaker from the midst of a generally inebriated group.If someone can figure out a reasonable way to manage the small number of irresponsible drinkers without creating an unfriendly environment for the vast majority of non-drinkers and responsible drinkers, then beer could be dispensed everywhere with minimal problems.

The one this afternoon turned south and the worst missed Akron. More on the way.