bigham78

Last couple of times I've been in Akron I've made a point to go by there and see for myself how bad it had gotten. I saw only assorted bums and other derelicts going to Manny's Pub and only Akron Police going to the Aroma.

They closed the SUn Grille not long after the agreement despite the UofA giving them until Dec 15 to vacate the property. They said the last two tennats they still had in the warehouse should have been gone Dec 1st.

The is all but dead. I bet like the Sun Grille Manny Pub will be closed long before the deadline. Aroma and chopstix may last a little while longer. But, they'll be moved and closed long before March 1st. Also Manny not getting 1.8 mil. The attorneys get their fees and UofA paying Manny's court costs in included in that total, so I'm betting Manny take is around the 900,000 and I'm sure this jury would have given him that amout this time around which is why he saw the light and settled. The writing was on the wall when Spicer ruled the real estate broker couldn't testify for Manny like he did for Joe the last time. The sad fact is this all could have been avioded had Manny not been such a moron about this and he still could have gotten the same monies months ago.

Looks like what is going up on the east side is the steel that will support the pre-formed upper sections of stands.That is right. Awesome to see some progress in the cameras. I know they are working hard on wiring, plumbing, drainage and the lot, but when you only means of seeing improvement is a bigger structure it's nice to know they are still pushing hard to get this done.Correct.All the things you named are not things we can see via the CAMS. But, are important to overall project. As you see more lighting in the press tower floors, are telling of the daily progress they're making.Seeing the steel support start to go up today on the East side is indication of the major progress they're making despite some lousy weather and conditions to work in.

I know, right?Most years we haven't had our first snowfall-that-sticks until x-mas time or later.But I have seen concrete poured in 30degree temp ranges before. They can get mixes that are made to set in lower temps, and then they cover the wall or slab and run kerosene heaters underneath.They can pour in this kind of weather so long as the air temperature is above the 20's. They add chemicals to the mix to help it set up faster before temperatures fall at night. Please keep in mind they were over 50% done by 10/21 on the topping off event. The upper deck are preformed sections built elsewhere and will be lowered into place once the under sections are ready and done with any crane work. That will go up very quickly. There still 290 plus days to go and that's plenty of time to finish what they have to finish bad weather or not.

First things first. Let win out after blowing winnable games to this point.If, UOFA does that. There will be slots available as some conferences will come up short. Here's one projection that's been floating around.Independence Dec. 28 Shreveport, La. ESPN 8 p.m. Big 12 vs. SEC Akron* vs. La.-Lafayette* The Big 12 and SEC are coming up short and the SBC will only be able to field a couple of those slots.

The attendance for Ball St Vs Miami (OH) 14,758 Toledo having a terrible seasonThe Attendance for their last home Central Michigan 21,422Fans are not happy when you're playing crappy football. But, fans when they don't have to drive 8 miles to an off campus crappy stadium will turn out in better numbers.

A winning product plus an on campus stadium and attendance will be far better.UofA used to draw well in the 1970's when they fielded decent teams despite playing at anicent stadium some 8 miles off campus. 2004 and 2005 proved UofA can draw when they field a decent team. IMO, the great attendance of those two seasons would have been far better had UofA had an on-campus stadium.

I was thinking the same thing.I was there at football clinic with one of my nephews a fews years ago and the bathrooms still looked as bad as always.

The smaller cranes can lift HVAC units and they've been putting that in place yesterday and today in the Cams. I'm pretty sure they'll bring another mid size type crane when they start putting the pre-fab upper deck into place.Anyone who doubts how long that will take needs to go to University of Minnesota site and take at look their stadium. It's far larger at 50,000 plus and they started placing their pre-fab upper deck in place in Late July-Early August and that part of the project is almost done. http://stadium.gophersports.com/?DB_OEM_ID=8400This project started just a few months before ICS and is opening in Sept 2009 as well.

But he also said the school spent a lot of time and money pouring and repouring concrete into the closed end of the Bowl to counteract the effects of an underground spring.The tunnel you came out of for football games on the home side. You could look into underbelly of the bowl and see where it went into the side of hill. It always had wet musty smell to it and if you ever played games there like I did during my HS years. You'll remember that smell as you were running onto the RB field. There was always wet spots in the dirt you could see and that was even on dry nights.

According to Ashland site. The costs is 23.6 mil

If we beat Toledo, and the game is truly for a championship, I see Buffalo bringing 6k themselves. We'll be over 15k regardless.If we lose to Toledo, and the weather is terrible, I think 10-12k is expected.Since I paid $60.00 for my four reserved season tickets, and based on the devaluation of Zips tickets, does that mean my family's attendance at the Buffalo game counts as 60 heads?I would say yes and you should be allowed to bring 60 of your closet friend.

Isn't that why they're there? I heard (somewhere) that the structural integrity at that end of the bowl wasn't sufficient to support the weight of a full crowd. Anyone know about this?Yep, that why they're covered. That area which has been in bad shape for years, is not safe.

Hopefully this will end speculation of the Endzone Facility and it's use. Endzone Facility:First Floor (Field Level): FOOTBALL GAME DAY FACILITIES - team meeting/locker room for both the Zips and high schools, coaches meeting/locker room, press room, equipment room and restroom/shower area. SPORTS MEDICINE OPERATIONS - treatment/taping area, rehabilitation area, hydrotherapy room, examination/X-ray room, two offices and storage. Second Floor: sports team programming to be determined.

The thread veered off course as we were talking about UofA lousy coverage by ABJ and someone made the comments about the great HS. I disagreed. I agree Wells was top RB coming out of HS. But, Garfield was not the top team in the city of Akron when Bennie played for them. They didn't win the city title while he was there nor did they make the state playoffs. But, the poster is right the ABJ covered Garfield because of Wells back in 2004-2005 and not because of Garfield as Buchtel and Ellet were the better team at that time. But, Garfield got the prime coverage. It still makes no sense. You have a lot of great players here in Georgia who have committed to UGA. But, if their team stinks. They're not getting prime coverage because of the player. One of the top recruits in the state committed last spring to UGA. But, his team is medicore this fall and are not getting the type of coverage the ABJ gave Garfield when Bennie was there. Bottom line is the ABJ needs to do better with UofA and I for one will keep flooding them with emails until they do.

When it comes to football, one program has stood above all the others in the history of the Akron City Series, and it's Garfield. It was very appropriate that the last City Series game in the Rubber Bowl was Garfield/Buchtel (arguably the two best City Series' programs), and it was nice to see the good guys win another championship. Nice to see the Beacon get one thing right, as they don't get much right! Go Rams!That's right when you're saying history. But, Garfield hadn't won a city title since 2001 before they won this one and they still got the best coverage 2002 through last year even the year they went 2-8 a couple of years ago, you would thought they were 8-2 the way the ABJ covered them. They haven't been the best team Six of the the last seven years and couple of those years were only a Kenmore, Firestone and Central-Hower from being in the basement. Bottom line is they didn't warrant getting game coverage and human interests coverage they got six of the last seven years over the other HS's.There more then one HS in Akron and while Garfield has proud tradition and history. It's not right to basically ignore 5 of the other 6 schools when comes to scores and coverage. That's truly sad saying Garfield is the best team so we're going to cover them and screw everybody else.An attitude like that is why the ABJ covers Ohio St and say screw UofA who sits on the same street as them.

I think as the campus keeps expanding, and as football games are played on campus, ABJ will be somewhat forced to cover it, because the city will be talking about it.Not to mention the front of the ABJ sports page from a couple days ago was covering the mens soccer game win over UM.Now that I think of it, the best thing the stadium will be used for that gets us coverage will be High School football games. Unfortunately HS football is king here, and college ball is an afterthought, but that might change when all those people who perpetually live in HS football land (you know the ones, still wearing their 40 year old Letterman's jacket from Buchtel or Garfield and hanging around practices) will be forced to come to UA's campus. This will be the greatest draw we could possibly have for getting people to see the new look of Akron's campus.I'm one of the older guys here and I can tell the ABJ coverage of the ZIPS used to far better in 1970's. ABJ reporters used to honorary HC for the Spring football game and the Fall basketball scrimages. The coverage was good when I moved out of Akron in the early 1980's. It's gone downhill since that time and it's not HS football. OSU get the best coverage out of the ABJ IMO, these days. They already have pictures up of the OSU lost to Penn St less then a half hour since the game ended on the website.Akron City Series football coverages sucks these days unless your Garfield HS. I'm always writing the ABJ sports editor letting them know there more the One HS in Akron.

I hope they can get that in today. Looks like rain in the CAMS with the black clouds.

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/31490204.htmlDid anyone notice that had closed two months early?One down and Manny's are next.I can't believe the moron is still holding out for his Dec 2nd trial.

yeah, thats how they are normally done. Because of that, I am not too sure that they're going to be putting those in till maybe spring because of everything under them needed completed (at least to the point where they dont need to bring in large equipment)They can set preformed in the winter. They did when they built Cleveland Stadium and I had those cams going then. It's concrete they don't like pouring when it's lower then 32 degrees.

If you haven't seen it yet, there is a guy who is now doing a monthly blog on the Stadium at GoZips.com. Here is the link http://www.gozips.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPS...;ATCLID=1597514By the way one of the ABJ Trolls referred the the Stadium as InfoPrison - I like it - Take No Prisoners! That disappoints me and, frankly, blows my mind. I can't believe that anyone even mildly concerned about Akron's future would be anything less than thrilled with this new stadium project and the overall direction of UA. No wonder they've come to be known as Trolls. Don't let that bother you. The ABJ blogs are full trolls and assorted nuts and bolts. That why they changed the registration policy and it has cleaned it some as you now have to sign in with your email and will be warned about posts if you violate site rules and banned if you can't follow them. Many of the trolls and warts have left since they did that. But, you still have a few around and they will not kill the thrill I get everyday when I fire up my computer and watch Info going up.

UNT lost 77-20 to Rice this weekend and are 0-4 this season and none of their four losses have be remotely close. All blows where K-State, Tulsa, LSU and Rice were able to play back-ups after building big leads. That's on the heels of 3-9 the past two seasons and 3-8 in 2005 season. Methinks UNT raising 40 million even in Texas will be a bigger task then the AD thinks.I've been to UNT's stadium and it is a pit, but its still better than the Rubber Bowl. C'mon Infocision.I've seen it as well and you're right it's a . A least the RB didn't have seats miles away due to track between the stands and the field. The endzone seats there feel like you're in another county watching the game. It's not much better then the RB except for the fancy scoreboard brought with Bowl monies they got. Stands wise for stadium 11 years younger then the RB. It's not all that better. But, I agree it needs to be replaced. But, why UNT exist on building a 50,000 seat stadium when they haven't sold this one out even when they won 4 SBC titles in row. Their best crowd was Baylor in 2003 at 27,000 and 16,000 of those fans were Baylor fans. They need to do like UofA and start with 30,000 seats add as needed. They don't need 50,000 of which 30,000 plus will be vacant given what they're drawing these days. The HS legend they have as HC has set the program back years the way they're playing right now.

The 12000 is your average attendance after 2 games. The 15.8k in Youngstown is the average attendance after 3 games.I think that's pretty good when you're comparing Stambaugh which opened in 1982 On-campus for YSU, compared to 68 year old crumbling stadium some ten miles away from campus.I love how YSU talk trash and pretend like YSU football didn't exists prior to 1982. YSU played at Austintown Fitch HS and I attended games there when YSU couldn't sell out a HS stadium. That was back when the Acme-Zip game 35,000 to 40,000 was more then YSU drew for entire season.The Info will make big difference along with UofA putting a winner on the field. 2004 and 2005 proves UofA can draw as they far exceed the 15,000 for both those season at crumbling RB 10 miles away from campus.Just what to think a winning product and brand new on-campus stadium will do?I think it's great YSU draws what they draw today. But, spare me the tough talk. I remember when YSU couldn't draw jack.