TXST Vision

[JustinS09]

So, this topic came up in the other thread and I wanted to focus on it a little more without derailing the other thread too much.

I think to preface this topic, we need a definition for vision. There seemed to be an issue with semantics in the other thread. So, for me a vision as it relates to this topic is a goal for where Texas State should be in the future. It should include a well thought out, structured plan, with several milestones and action items for everyone involved.

Everyone involved would include fans, alumni, students, employees/staff of Texas State, donors, and especially the AD.

With that out of the way, I'd like to see something that includes post season success for every sport on a regular basis. Bowl games need to be an every year occurrence and expectation. We need to be competing to be the best team in the country. We need to never be satisfied and always push for more.

Basketball needs to get to a point where we expect to be a tournament team every year with a deep tourney run from time to time.

Baseball, same deal. Expect to be in a regional every year with a deep tourney run from time to time. Aka - Omaha.

Volleyball - take the next step and start winning post season games. It's not enough to get there and get bounced on the first round. Going to be hard to do it when we play UT in the first round most of the years we make it.

Women's basketball - need some conference championships and post season appearances. They've yet to win a conference championship over the past 15+ years. It's unacceptable.

Softball - see volleyball above. Find a way over the hump and get more consistent with post season appearances and conference championships.

Soccer - see volleyball and softball. Last post season was 2011. Need to get more consistent and get in the NCAA tournament more frequently.

Donor numbers- current numbers and current negative trajectory is absolutely unacceptable. Need better outreach by the admin. Only way you're going to accomplish the goals for each sport listed above is money. You need money for facilities, coaching salaries, equipment, etc.

Need to increase current annual donors from the 1300 we have now to around 5000 to put us inline with UH and SMU. That's the short term number. Long term number needs to be between 7 and 10k.

Annual dollars raised need to increase from current 600K to 7 million ish to bring us inline with UH and SMU. Again, that's a short term goal. Long term needs to be closer to 15 million.

Facilities need to be improved. Locker rooms, meeting rooms, weight room, indoor facility, coaches offices, athlete dorms, all need to be addressed and updated.

Fan areas also need to be upgraded. Concessions need a complete remodel and update (both football and Strahan). Fan shop needs to be upgraded, including the stations set up in the stadium. Wireless networks need to be created for all sports venues.

Audio systems need a complete overhaul in Bobcat Stadium. 2 giant low quality speakers at the end of the stadium don't work. It's a terrible design.



I'm interested to see what everyone else would add or change.

Notice I didn't say anything about conferences. A lot of that is out of our control anyways. There's no telling what the college football or D1 landscape will look like in the future. What you can focus on is making us the best we possibly can. Have a goal to be better than every other university at the D1 level in everything we do. Sell the fans on that and they'll turn into donors. If the AD and fan base is on the same page, we can work towards making it happen.

 

[Richard]

In Texas States Master Plan here are some things it lists

 

[JustinS09]

Not a lot there, but what is mentioned is expected. The matter plan only addresses part of a vision. It's the facilities piece and I would say that they need to expand on it and publicize it much better.

 

[_x_]

A cross country course around Spring Lake would be cool.

 

[Bobcat1]

A cross country course around Spring Lake would be cool.

Not enough room for a collegiate one, that's why we had to rent out Gary Job Corps facilities back in the day. Some of our most successful revenue generating meets were held there.

 

[_x_]

Yeah it'd have to be a loop.

Says 3-mile course above. Men's races are 8k-10k so 5-6+ miles. They'd have to run the course twice if it was 3 miles long.

 

[Bobcat1]

Yeah it'd have to be a loop.

Says 3-mile course above. Men's races are 8k-10k so 5-6+ miles. They'd have to run the course twice if it was 3 miles long.

I know, I ran it many times during my career here. Two and a half times to be exact for a proper course. But hey, I never did competitive sports or anything according to some.

 

[JustinS09]

Cross country and facilities/master plan is only one aspect of a long term vision. Since yall are talking about that though, do yall feel like the current master plan is appropriate for the next 10 years?

It also isn't as specific as I would like. Specifically when it comes to the indoor practice facility. I would prefer it to offer several options that pave a path to making that a reality. I know my proposal would be the government housing behind the stadium. From everything people have said over the years, I believe you could relocated them to a new area. The University would have to purchase the government housing land and land in another part of San Marcos, but it could be done. Just need an AD that can raise the funds. Can't raise the funds if no one outside the Casey building even knows it's an option.

 

[Bobcat1]

Cross country and facilities/master plan is only one aspect of a long term vision. Since yall are talking about that though, do yall feel like the current master plan is appropriate for the next 10 years?

It also isn't as specific as I would like. Specifically when it comes to the indoor practice facility. I would prefer it to offer several options that pave a path to making that a reality. I know my proposal would be the government housing behind the stadium. From everything people have said over the years, I believe you could relocated them to a new area. The University would have to purchase the government housing land and land in another part of San Marcos, but it could be done. Just need an AD that can raise the funds. Can't raise the funds if no one outside the Casey building even knows it's an option.

The first part: yes, we need a revision of the Master Plan.

The second part: As was my understanding it would cost in excess of $60M to buy the land and relocate the residents. That kind of financial commitment (not even taking into account the approval of Federal agencies to agree to it as I believe there are issues with location of new housing) is not feasible without twenty donors like the Navarrette's stepping up. That's why the golf course option I mentioned before is the only "viable" alternative if an indoor facility was THAT pressing of a need to advance athletics (for my money that's a wish list item rather than a necessity).

 

[Bakertxst04]

Out of curiosity, do we know when that Government housing was installed? It seems like we've built so much around it, but I wonder why we would have begun expanding in that area if we knew we might possibly encounter a proverbial roadblock to our expansion plans due to that housing block?

 

[JustinS09]

Out of curiosity, do we know when that Government housing was installed? It seems like we've built so much around it, but I wonder why we would have begun expanding in that area if we knew we might possibly encounter a proverbial roadblock to our expansion plans due to that housing block?

I don't believe anyone was that forward thinking. However, I believe the government housing has been there a long time.

@Bobcat1 I would be interested to hear where you got the $60 million number from. Not doubting the validity of it, just curious if there was actually a report or estimate conducted. A good AD would make that report public knowledge and start fundraising a capitol campaign to finance it. They would create marketing material relating to that campaign and a marketing strategy to target the fan base/donors that could help. The fans have to understand 1) why it's important, and 2) what is required for them to assist in reaching that goal.

In regards to your "wish list vs need" statement. It is absolutely a necessity in today's college football landscape. Almost all of the P5 schools have one now and several of the schools we compete with for recruits have one now too. UTSA, UNT, Arkansas State, ULL, and several others.

The location where the government housing currently sits is large enough to house 2 soccer fields, an indoor practice facility, baseball and softball locker rooms, and additional coaching offices. It would give us the opportunity to bring all athletics into one location. I know for a fact, an athletics complex similar to this has been the goal for a while. We just need the right leadership in place to make it happen.

 

[_x_]

A good AD would make that report public knowledge and start fundraising a capitol campaign to finance it. They would create marketing material relating to that campaign and a marketing strategy to target the fan base/donors that could help. The fans have to understand 1) why it's important, and 2) what is required for them to assist in reaching that goal.

This was the plan for the baseball/softball locker rooms to be built at the baseball/softball complex. Was at least 2009 if not sooner that they announced they were looking to raise, I believe, $8 million for that project. They've gotten really far in 10 years on raising those funds....

 

[Bobcat1]

I don't believe anyone was that forward thinking. However, I believe the government housing has been there a long time.

@Bobcat1 I would be interested to hear where you got the $60 million number from. Not doubting the validity of it, just curious if there was actually a report or estimate conducted. A good AD would make that report public knowledge and start fundraising a capitol campaign to finance it. They would create marketing material relating to that campaign and a marketing strategy to target the fan base/donors that could help. The fans have to understand 1) why it's important, and 2) what is required for them to assist in reaching that goal.

In regards to your "wish list vs need" statement. It is absolutely a necessity in today's college football landscape. Almost all of the P5 schools have one now and several of the schools we compete with for recruits have one now too. UTSA, UNT, Arkansas State, ULL, and several others.

The location where the government housing currently sits is large enough to house 2 soccer fields, an indoor practice facility, baseball and softball locker rooms, and additional coaching offices. It would give us the opportunity to bring all athletics into one location. I know for a fact, an athletics complex similar to this has been the goal for a while. We just need the right leadership in place to make it happen.

It wasn't made by the AD, it was made by the city a few years back. It is public knowledge and I discussed it with the CodeSMTX people (I believe it was) when we were discussing housing options during my campaign.

Leadership and forward thinking can only get you so far when you have to deal with several agencies and departments across city, state and Federal jurisdictions.

 

[JustinS09]

Leadership and forward thinking can only get you so far

Yea, I meant for there to be an emphasis on "that," as in "I don't believe anyone was THAT forward thinking." I think it would have been impossible for anyone to have foreseen the need for that land at the time the government housing was established there.

 

[Bobcat1]

Yea, I meant for there to be an emphasis on "that," as in "I don't believe anyone was THAT forward thinking." I think it would have been impossible for anyone to have foreseen the need for that land at the time the government housing was established there.

True.

 

[JustinS09]

Also, there is currently an apartment complex next to the government housing that we should take over immediately. They aren't government owned, so the cost to acquire and the red tape that prevents us from buying the government housing isn't there. We could place the softball/baseball locker rooms and coaches offices there.

 

[JustinS09]

Here's a visual of what I am referring to. The highlighted box should be acquired immediately. You could build locker rooms, academic buildings for athletes, coaches offices, and meeting rooms.

The master plan also talked about the need to expand and/or relocate athletic academic study rooms that are currently under Harris dining hall. You could build those into this area as well.

,

 

[JustinS09]

I went ahead and bumped the original thread on this topic.

So, to get back to the vision aspect of this thread. I want an AD that can figure out what would need to happen for this to be a reality, put together a proposal, and release it to the fans and donors. Work with the fans and donors to get it done. Include this initiative in the Step Up for State fundraiser we hold every year and give periodic updates to fans and donors on where we are with fundraising. Heck, take it a step further and have a few mockups created that would allow people to visualize the possibilities for the future athletic complex if we were able to accomplish this goal.

I'm curious @Bobcat1, what is your vision for TXST? Who do you see as our current peers, who do you see as future peers. Where do you see TXST in 5, 10, 15 years? Is the AD doing everything they need to be doing now to get us to that point?

 

[Bobcat1]

Also, there is currently an apartment complex next to the government housing that we should take over immediately. They aren't government owned, so the cost to acquire and the red tape that prevents us from buying the government housing isn't there. We could place the softball/baseball locker rooms and coaches offices there.

Not that I disagree with you @JustinS09 because these are all good ideas, but that's another $10M (easily) to spend to acquire those apts. Relocating the residents, acquiring the public housing and the apt complex, tearing all the buildings down and THEN build an indoor facility with corresponding offices......you're looking at a $100M-$150M tab. We're not UT with a $3B endowment, with the current bonds in the books for the engineering building, the new dorms, the facility upgrades/stadiums the past decade.....Texas State would have a hard time finding the funds for what might prove to be a 5-10 year project when it's all said and done.

 

[JustinS09]

Not that I disagree with you @JustinS09 because these are all good ideas, but that's another $10M (easily) to spend to acquire those apts. Relocating the residents, acquiring the public housing and the apt complex, tearing all the buildings down and THEN build an indoor facility with corresponding offices......you're looking at a $100M-$150M tab. We're not UT with a $3B endowment, with the current bonds in the books for the engineering building, the new dorms, the facility upgrades/stadiums the past decade.....Texas State would have a hard time finding the funds for what might prove to be a 5-10 year project when it's all said and done.

So, I finally got home from a long commute in Houston traffic and can respond to some of these posts you have been making.

First, your cost estimates are way off. Arkansas State just built a full end zone complex with attached indoor practice facility (that looks great by the way), for $22 million. Also, the most expensive commercial real estate I could find in San Marcos is the building on the square that Harpers currently occupies and it's only $2.9 million. I'm also not an expert on real estate law, but I am pretty sure that if you buy property that a private company owned apartment complex is located on, you have no obligation to relocate the residents. Now, I understand that might be different for the the government housing, but again I don't think your cost estimates are anywhere close, even if you include buying an alternative location for the SMHA and financing the neighborhood for them.

So, if you are calculating the cost of the total proposal and not just the small lot the apartment complex sits on, you are more accurately looking at no more than $3 million for each piece of land (the current SMHA location and new proposed location), 22-30 million for an indoor facility with meeting rooms, offices, study rooms, and locker rooms, and maybe 5-10 million for the houses (which is probably an overestimation and based on legitimately nice houses and not what would be comparable to the current ones.) Total of 46 million at the highest estimation costs. A far cry from the $100-150M you quoted. Regardless, everything we are discussing is either currently a necessity (in order to keep up with the teams we are trying to compete against), or will be a necessity in the next 5-10 years (either because we will get completely passed up by our competitors, or our growth will require it to compete with a different level of peers.) Not to mention that a lot of the facilities I am proposing are already in the Master Plan. That means they are likely already budgeting for them and just analyzing the logistics.

Finally,

I'm curious @Bobcat1, what is your vision for TXST? Who do you see as our current peers, who do you see as future peers. Where do you see TXST in 5, 10, 15 years? Is the AD doing everything they need to be doing now to get us to that point?