Blue & Gold

9:00 Sunday morning and there are men working... on the northern endzone buildings!

Any word on who he's leaning toward?

I ate there Tuesday night. Great place. They spared no expense on the interior, that's for sure. Nice atmosphere. Good service. Good food. A lot to like. I'll certainly return.Jimmy John's is an exciting addition as well.Anyone hear any rumors about who else may be moving in? There is still no coffeeshop on the southside of downtown. With over 300 students living above, Panera Bread would be a nice addition - nice breakfast/lunch spot. Dunkin' Donuts, perhaps? Starbucks (too obvious?) Chipotle?Brubaker's is not in what appears to be the anchor location of the new complex. Brubaker's Pub is on Main Street, but it looks like the anchor location will be on the corner of Main & Exchange (obviously). Great location! Winking Lizard?! Perhaps the relocated OBC? (While a Winking Lizard could fill the space vacated by the OBC, I guess the OBC wants a more intimate setting?)

<br /><br /><br />My guess would be Marshall during their hayday, and I would say, with our lack of a winning tradition and marketing, we wouldn't have much of a chance @ breaking it this year. Especially since our marketing department is aiming for the stars with a goal of 18,000. Roll eyes.

What would account for some of those seemingly random and drastic rises and falls in attendance?

<br /><br /><br />I sure hope not! I got so sick and tired of Pluto always writing UA off as the little engine who couldn't.

Proenza should fire them ALL!I also blame the Cleveland media. If this stadium were in Cleveland we'd almost literally have daily stories on it's progress, and be continually told about how uncontollably excited absolutely anyone-who's-anyone in northeast Ohio is about the stadium's opening. However, since the stadium is in Akron, the Cleveland media will do almost everything possible to downplay the event. Thus, I'm loving the fact that the Indians suck. I've loved the fact the Browns suck. I'm from Akron so I love LeBron, but if it wasn't for LBJ I'd as sincerely hope for the Cavs to suck. But on top of the Cleveland sports teams having to suck, in order for us to win the hearts of the Cleveland-media-brainwashed Akron masses, the Zips HAVE TO WIN!And hire some real marketing professionals. Rant over.

<br /><br /><br />What you are seeing are blue-colored bleacher seatbacks. The lower bowl 50-yard line sections (both east & west stands) have them.

Our marketing efforts are tragically piss poor. There is absolutely NO way Hunter is getting the head AD job. You are absolutely right that UA should have had a stronger presence @ these downtown events. I just wish the UA athletics department was as enthusiastic about Zips athletics as we are.

How could we have completely missed them installing the ribbon board?! I didn't notice that phase of construction at all, and I don't think I recall anyone remarking about it.

Losers can always find something to complain about, so I hate being a glass-half-empty whiner. But is anyone else kinda disappointed at how seemingly generic the Zips scarf is? I was really expecting something more, what's the word, Idk, detailed?

I'd say they really only need a single endzone camera - likely to be placed on top of the scoreboard. One team will be kicking towards the camera, the other team will be kicking away from the camera.

<br /><br />Yes, exactly. What game do you think would be the best? Morgan State or Indiana. I think Indiana as we'll have the kinks worked out and it will be a big win!<br /><br /><br /><br />I'm really looking forward to both the Can't and Ohio games as well. Excellent home slate this season!

Honestly, the athletics department is either extremely incompetent or just plain lazy. Neither is acceptable for a D-1 university. This is especially true for UA as Proenza tries to change it's image.

<br /><br /><br />The link speaks of former athletes being able to purchase bricks. I'm not a former UA athlete; I'm not even an alumnus of UA, but I think all 1st-Info-season ticket holders were supposed to have a brick w their name on it. However, I asked a UA athletics employee about these bricks about a month ago and was told, "We haven't decided yet." I'm not sure what that means, precisely, but I guess they've somewhat changed their minds about the name-brick wall?Anyway, don't you just love the constant flow of communication coming out of UA's athlectics department?!

It might have something to do with Zeke already being enrolled and taking classes.

<br /><br />Video boards awaiting installation? Looks like there are a few in the same spot on the west bowl.<br /><br /><br />I think those platforms might be the base for handicapped seating areas. If you look at the <a href="http://www.gozips.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=10800&KEY=&ATCLID=3674363" target="_blank">seating diagram on the Tickets page </a>of the UA website, there are rectangular lines at the back of lower sections 101 through 113 on the east side, and sections 108 through 120 on the west side.<br /><br /><br /><br />You are correct. That is handicap seating.<br /><br /><br />I just want you to know the above was not all that I wrote. It was edited by someone other than myself. Apparently the moderator took offense at the possibility I really had been hired to throw people in wheelchairs over the concrete wall and onto the platforms.<br /><br /><br /><br />What, to supplement your income from pimpin'? Jk, lol.In all seriousness, my grandfather is handicapped and I really want to take him to either the Morgan State or Indiana game. If I get my grandfather a handicapped seating ticket, would I be able to sit with him? Or would I have to purchase 2 handicapped seating tickets? I really can't leave him on his own - but the handicapped seating is better than my GA location anyway! Lol.

Although I agree wholeheartedly, it probably won't happen. They have plans to remodel the interior of Bierce, which I think is stupid. By the time CH is free game, couldn't we get the money for a new library? Bierce is eh..I agree. We need a library that drops potential student's jaws. We need a library that architecturally rivals the downtown library! The main library should be one of the centerpieces of any campus.

<br /><br />Because you can't just count the seats when the SRO is actually preferred by the more crazy students. They're willingly not sitting in a seat but they're certainly contributing to attendance.<br /><br /><br />Oh! So that makes it a 33,000 seat facility. Couldn't we squeeze in another 10K in SRO? Then we could have a 43K facility. And we all know what that would be .................................... pimptastic.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fo shizzle!

I think they are installing the wrought-iron railings atop the north endzone facility.

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.This is where I'm starting to lean as to where to place a new arena. It's close to downtown's Historic and Northside Districts and could work in cooperation with the JSKnight Convention Center. In another thread I had proposed shutting down Mill Street & knocking the bridge down between Quaker Square and the proposed sight. Let me clarify what I was thinking here - I don't think we should close Mill altogether, just from EAST of Broadway to WEST of College Street. If you look at that on MapQuest, it would really expand the campus footprint and make Quaker Square pedestrian friendly. (I still think Quaker Square has A LOT of potential. I'm glad to hear that UA is going to be operating a hotel there instead of turning it all into dorm space. I think UA should use at least 2 of the old restaurant spaces - Trackside Grill & Tavern on the Square - as operational restaurants managed by their culinary arts program.)

Downtown desperately needs UA to take control of the Mayflower and turn it into student dorm space. I repeat, downtown desperately needs this. Lol.

Still waiting on those Zips replica football jersey's that cannot be found anywhere?I even emailed the marketing guy and he has not responded.UA athletics has been so abysmally bush-league for so long I, tragically, am often quite accustomed to it. But The University of Akron simply cannot afford a shabbily run athletics department anylonger - this year, with the opening of the Info, is a watershed year. Replica jerseys - be they football, basketball or baseball - are taken-for-granted staple offerings of any college or professional sports team shop. Any, that is, but UofA.

i think they should tear down the old softball field and let us tailgate on the grass over thereI heard that may end up being the premium tailgate lot.I still hold out hope that there is a big event area in the Coleman Commons with all the tents and inflatables and stuff. The university would be stupid not to do that.Excellent job, 'Kid! Oh, how I long for the day that the UA athletic department gives as much thought to UA athletics as most ZipsNation members do.