Rider can get their act together on this but we are stuck in neutral.
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/..._practice_facility_at_rider.html#incart_river
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/..._practice_facility_at_rider.html#incart_river
Geez, even Rider upgrading BB facilities - including practice facility!
- Thread starter Joey Bacala
- Start date
this post is just ironic given the announcement coming tomorrow on what RU is doing...
And what exactly is that? The few people that actually know for sure certainly ain't talking.
Just that if we wait until tomorrow, we will find out if we are stuck in neutral.
I was still at Rider when this plan was conceived. It's good for them, but really, this is a very modest plan for a very modest practice facility. If you've ever been to their Alumni Gym, you know they need something to give them a little better look, and this will really help. Two lead donors are Jason Thompson and another alum who has been behind this plan from the start. It's all privately funded, but wouldn't begin to cover what you guys are looking for.
I'm sure Rutgers could build what's in that link for relatively next to nothing if they wanted to. Problem is that the thing nothing more than an enclosed building with a court on it. If we built that thing, we'd be fundraising again tomorrow to build a different/better one.
I'm assuming the practice facility is going to cost in the neighborhood of $10-30M (but honestly, I don't know the exact amount at all). A couple of million is what will be spent on our baseball/softball facility. It's relatively a drop in the bucket, or as I said, next to nothing, in the grand scheme of things.
If we wanted to spend just $3M on a basketball facility, for example, it would have already been done. They're TRYING to do it the right way, though. Go big or go home.
"Rider still plays in basically a high school gym."
This is very true and many high schools would be embarrassed to play in Alumni Gym. I think it was built back in the 1950s or early 1960s when Rider built its "new" campus in the suburbs (Lawrence Twsp.). Prior to that, IIRC, Rider was just a one-building business school in downtown Trenton.
Rider needs a new arena, not just a practice facility. It's been in the MAAC for something like 20 years now and has done little or nothing to upgrade its facilities during this entire period. It tried playing a few games at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton but didn't draw well there and that experiment pretty much ended at that point.
This is very true and many high schools would be embarrassed to play in Alumni Gym. I think it was built back in the 1950s or early 1960s when Rider built its "new" campus in the suburbs (Lawrence Twsp.). Prior to that, IIRC, Rider was just a one-building business school in downtown Trenton.
Rider needs a new arena, not just a practice facility. It's been in the MAAC for something like 20 years now and has done little or nothing to upgrade its facilities during this entire period. It tried playing a few games at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton but didn't draw well there and that experiment pretty much ended at that point.
