Dave in Green

Heck yes if the Zips ever accomplished what NIU has accomplished I'd kick in something to see an ad like that. Everyone here would. We all agree that they have to get there first before we start collecting money. With Coach Bowden there's at least a prayer now that was never there before. It's time to replace decades of pessimism with at least a sliver of cautious optimism.

Thanks again, GP1. Your firsthand inspection is much appreciated. A nice touch we discovered about our B&B after we made our reservation is that they serve complementary wine in the afternoon. They also cook gourmet-quality breakfasts to order with local recipes. It seems to be first class in every way at a fair price. We were at the Hominy Grill just last year, so we saw the expansion and had drinks on the patio while awaiting a table. I found a description of the local neighborhood where the B&B is located and which we would be walking through to get to the arena, which is less than a mile away -- something we'd consider a reasonable walk in daylight. Judging from the following description it sounds like it's pretty safe even if there are nearby areas that aren't so much: Radcliffborough Right next to the Medical University of South Carolina, Radcliffeborough is populated by doctors, college students and more in condos and historic properties. Homes here are more affordable than those in the neighborhoods south of Calhoun St, and it's not hard to find a beautiful 3/4 BR for under $800,000. This neighborhood is easy walking distance to the Upper King St district with restaurants and shops galore. For families with young daughters, the private Ashley Hall school is here too.

Zip_ME87, knowing how passionate and emotional you are about Zips soccer, I really appreciate your efforts to try to tone down some of the more extreme stuff and be more calm and measured in your advocacy. I'm won over by logical discussion points and not crazy talk. At times this discussion was reaching the point that I was about to tune it out. But there have also been reasonable comments from both sides, which has kept me engaged. One suggestion I would make is that you stop continuously citing Tom Wistrcill's mistake in hiring Rob Ianello as everyone is already acutely and painfully aware of this. Whenever I see someone constantly bringing up the mistakes of someone else it reminds me how imperfect we all are. I've made mistakes in my life and have moved on a little wiser and trying to do better. I have no doubts that you have, too. Everyone has. Point made and understood by all. I support your efforts to try to get the full story. I think the one thing we all have in common is that we want what's best for UA, and I believe that each of us should be willing to compromise in areas that might be especially important to us if it results in an overall improvement for UA. We will all need to have access to the best available information in order to arrive at our own best conclusions. Selected facts from potentially biased sources that support only one side's preconceived notions will be rejected by everyone else. As the old saying goes, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

GP1, I really appreciate your offer. It's the Cannonboro Inn at 184 Ashley Avenue. I've just "driven" the area in Google Street View and it looks gentrified, but your real-world view will be welcome. I have a fair amount of urban experience and understand some areas are OK day and night, some are OK in daytime only and some areas are never OK. We plan to have a long talk with the B&B owner immediately upon arrival. As I mentioned, we're two blocks from the Hominy Grill, and parking there is so bad that most end up a block or two away. So most of the folks who have dinner at the Hominy Grill end up walking a couple of blocks in that area after dark. But knowing the direction of the nearby bad neighborhood will help us avoid that. EDIT: Forgot to mention, check these reviews.

GP1, the wife and I have had some of our most memorable experiences at bed and breakfasts across the country. So we booked a highly reviewed B&B about 10 blocks northwest of the College of Charleston near the South Carolina Medical Center. It looks from the aerial views and from memories of our previous visit like a nice neighborhood, and the cost is just $815 for five nights including breakfasts. Best of all it's only two blocks from the Hominy Grill and the world's greatest chocolate pudding. Sound OK to you?

I can also recommend Hominy Grill. Just understand in advance that it is one of the most popular restaurants in the city. They take reservations for dinner but they're hard to get so call days ahead. They don't take reservations for breakfast or lunch. We thought we'd avoid the lunch crowd by going at 3 p.m. on a weekday. We ended up waiting outside for over an hour with dozens of others. It was worth it. Everything on the menu our large group ordered was outstanding. I had the outrageously tasty Shrimp Bog with andouille sausage, creole vegetable & Carolina gold rice. But the highlight for me was the chocolate pudding. Forget everything you know about chocolate pudding. This is pure ecstasy. In case you can't get to Hominy Grill, be sure to make a copy of the recipe below from their cook book that we bought there and make it yourself: Hominy Grill Chocolate Pudding Recipe 8 oz bittersweet chocolate 1/2 cup sugar 6 egg yolks 4 cups heavy cream 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp salt 1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees 2. Chop chocolate. Reserve in bowl. 3. Whisk 1/4 cup sugar into egg yolks. Mix rest of sugar with cream and vanilla in saucepan and bring to a boil. 4. Pour a little hot cream into bowl with egg yolks. Pour remaining cream over chocolate and stir with spatula until smooth. Add egg mixture and salt. Strain into a pitcher and refrigerate until cool. 5. Once cooled, pour into 2/3 cup ramekins and cook at 300 degrees for about one hour. Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.

There's some history behind this. Last time I was in Chicago I saw big billboards around town billing Northwestern as "Chicago's Big Ten Team." Meanwhile the University of Illinois has the most alumni in the Chicago area. Even Indiana-based Notre Dame was thrown into the conversation. NIU started getting attention after they went to the Orange Bowl. There was a big debate in local sports media about who is Chicago's real college football team.

Anyone who isn't familiar with Vision 2020, the blueprint for UA's future, should take a closer look. Hosting the Browns training camp fits well into the following three Strategic Pathway sections: * Connectivity for Economic Vitality (This involves working with the local community to enhance economic vitality for the whole area and not just UA. It's well documented that Berea businesses get a positive economic bump from the thousands of Browns fans who flock there for training camp. That enhancement could be transferred to benefit the Akron area's economic vitality.) * Campus and Community Enhancement and Engagement (This involves engaging community members by attracting them to various activities on campus. The Akron Beacon Journal has documented that there is more interest among Akron citizens in the Browns than in Zips athletics. If UA brings the Browns on campus for the benefit of local citizens, it would represent one of the biggest and most popular examples of community enhancement and engagement. Part of the positive spinoff may be more local interest generated for UA and Zips athletics.) * Enhancing Revenues to Support Growth (This involves broadening and diversifying UA's revenue sources. Renting facilities to the Browns during their training camp offers a new opportunity. It requires that the Browns pay a rental fee that more than covers UA's expenses. Someone in a single department at UA might see only the potential negative impact to their little world while those at the top with knowledge of the full impact on all aspects of UA would understand the overall benefit, i.e. the big picture. Revenue growth is an area where Dr. Scarborough has a reputation for being especially effective.)

I normally don't spend time conjecturing over what people didn't say because there are so many different things that could be said that a lot is always left out. Since you ask, I'll take a wild guess that they don't believe it's a major issue to a lot of people and that they believe when the final disposition is publicly announced that all but a few militant protestors will be satisfied.

As I recall your source did not tell you that the Browns would only be using the soccer pitch for the first year and not after that. So I would question if your source gave you a totally accurate appraisal on the bleeding funds comment as well. If the deal bleeds funds from UA, then it's not a profit maker transfusing funds into UA. If it's not a profit maker then it's a bad business deal. If it's a bad business deal then it would be out of character for Dr. Scarborough and would cause a lot of people to reconsider whether he's the right person to lead UA.

Link

This is one of the first high-profile issues that Dr. Scarborough has been directly involved in at UA. When I previously did a background search on him I found some negatives, which left me with questions about him leading UA from some perspectives. But the one thing he has gotten pretty consistent high marks on throughout his career is his business acumen, so I feel more optimistic about his abilities to cut a good business deal for UA.

Zip_ME87, the problem with starting multiple threads on the same subject is that they often end up with endless repetition. I just posted a response to Marla's story in one of the other threads, so I'm not going to repeat it here.

Nice work by Marla to get all the details. The full story turns out to be somewhere between what ZZZips and Zip_ME87 heard from their sources. The Browns would only use the soccer pitch for the first year, and in return the soccer program could get a grass practice field which they might not otherwise get. It's still flexible enough that everyone could end up benefiting if the profits are fairly allocated. It would be a lot more productive for UA if soccer fans focused their energy on supporting Coach Embick in trying to ensure that the soccer program gets its share of the benefits rather than fighting a program that could be good in the longterm for both the soccer program and UA.

Technically there's nothing wrong with this. I see it all the time on the football and basketball forums. I just thought soccer fans were different.

If you take the soccer pitch out of the equation, this whole discussion would have never gone nuclear hyperbolic. I don't think the soccer pitch is even in the equation, so most of the commotion here just seems to me to be wasted energy. It's a simple business decision. If there's a net benefit to UA they should go for it. If it creates more trouble than it's worth they should drop it. Apparently UA has crunched the numbers and seen a net benefit or they would not have submitted a bid. Time to relax and see what happens.

Here's my best guess. UA did an analysis of every possible option that could be used to accomodate hosting Browns training camp. Due diligence would require listing all options, even those likely to be rejected. One option would be to include the soccer pitch on the long list. The potential damaging effects that have been so well covered here would also have been considered by those in the know at UA. So while your sources are no doubt correct in saying it was considered, I think it's likely that was only in the long list, and it was rejected before it reached the level that ZZZips would have heard it being seriously discussed as a viable option. I think it's prudent for Zips soccer fans to remain cautiously on guard that such an option might still be under consideration. I don't think there's any need for anyone to get paranoid about it.

Of course it's possible that even the best-connected people haven't heard about everything that could conceivably happen. I guess aside from a notarized contract signed by every executive at UA that they will absolutely not under any conceivable circumstance ever allow a non-soccer foot on the Zips pitch, some will continue to agonize. I hope no one's health suffers over this.

ZZZips is pretty well connected with UA, so you can place a lot of confidence in what he posted earlier in this thread. Zips soccer fans can stop agonizing over the possibility of the Zips soccer pitch being violated by any non-soccer use.

Does anyone know if Coach Porter gave Coach Embick his highest recommendation to be his replacement?

You just wait until you see how much the locker rooms are going to be renovated at the nearby Rubber Bowl!

After posting the above, I found more information that suggests the only reason the Browns are considering moving their training camp is that their current facilities will not handle all the Browns fans who want to spectate at training camp. It would only be those couple of weeks of activity that might be moved. Apparently there's no consideration for moving other activities outside of Berea.

ZZZips, thanks for adding that solid background data. Here's the part I don't understand. The Browns already appear to have four perfectly good turf fields adjacent to their administrative complex where hundreds of Browns employees work, as shown in this aerial photo. At any time any of the Browns executives working in that building can walk out the door and watch their players practicing. Why would they want to move their practice facilities 40 miles away from their administrative complex? About the only reason I can think of from looking at the aerial view is that there's inadequate parking in the area for the 10,000 or so fans who show up to watch Browns practices. A remote possibility might be that for some reason they would want to move both their practice facilities and administrative complex to a new location where they could share practice facilities and reduce their overall costs. Though it seems unlikely that the Browns would move so far from the City of Cleveland, the implications of having the Browns administrative complex in Akron would be huge for the local economy, as the following portion of a 2011 Plain Dealer story on the economic impact of an NFL lockout graphically explains: My best guess at this point is that the Browns are "studying" the possibility of a move to try to leverage some kind of sweeter deal out of Berea. But both UA and the City of Akron would be remiss if they ignored even the remote possibility of landing the Browns in Akron.

Captain Kangaroo, you might be surprised at how much Berea benefits from the 10,000 or so fans who migrate to the Browns practice field each summer and how much the Akron economy could benefit from that. SwitchIt, I like your creative thinking in trying to find ways to make it work to everyone's benefit. In a previous discussion on this subject I was trying to do the same in this post with links to aerial views of the Browns' current practice complex and the potential area at UA.

Hosting the Browns would offer so many positive opportunities for UA and Akron that many of them haven't even been thought of or mentioned here yet. Every possibility should be considered to try to make this happen. But I understand the concern of Zips soccer fans. The Zips style of play has in the past been enhanced by a pristine home pitch, and no one should want to compromise the potential of UA's only national championship-winning athletic team. Zips football fans need to consider how they would feel if they discovered that hosting the Browns might compromise training for the Zips football team and degrade its newly found competitiveness. I don't think we have enough factual data just yet about the full impact of hosting the Browns to understand all the tradeoffs that need to be considered in order to make an informed decision.