Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
“A New Home” - Excitement builds as Facility Plan moves forward
11/17/2021 5:00:00 PM | Football, General, BRAA
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Jordan Middleton had seen the video before. When the once Middle Tennessee quarterback was getting recruited to Murfreesboro, the renderings of a modern Blue Raider Athletic Complex were a selling point, a glimpse into the future before he committed on where to go to school.
Middleton knew that it would take time for it to come to fruition. But now, as a GA on the equipment staff, Monday's public launch of the Build Blue Now campaign, alongside the announcement of the full funding for the $66 million Student Athlete Performance Center, meant he could finally see his alma mater's vision start to become reality.
"After I played here, being able to see it come to life, is really awesome," Middleton said. "I know all our coaches will be really thankful for it, because in the recruiting game, it helps them out a ton."
It's easy to see why former lettermen like Middleton were excited by the announcement last night. The Student-Athlete Performance Center (SAPC) will feature a plethora of amenities for all student-athletes, namely the remodeled weight room that will exist as a part of the facility, which will be built on the land where the current weight room and game day rooms adjacent to Floyd Stadium currently stand. But the SAPC will also house a myriad of direct upgrades for the football program's existing infrastructure, including new coaching offices, position meeting rooms, locker rooms and player lounges.
Of course, those upgrades open up the current football offices in the Murphy Center, which once filled by, say, the men's basketball program, then opens up their current offices to other coaches, leading to a net upgrade for everyone as part of the project. But there's no question that Rick Stockstill's football program stands to benefit greatly from the new home, which is projected to be ready ahead of the 2024 football season if everything goes to plan in the interim.
It's part of the reason Stockstill, along with his wife Sara, donated $500,000 to the Build Blue campaign, a move Middleton said didn't surprise him.
The new spaces, however, offer potential donors a lot of opportunities to perhaps name certain facilities, if that's something a donor might be interested in, Andy Womack, chair of the Build Blue campaign, said after the rally-style unveiling. The pamphlet available for BRAA members following the event listed options such as the SAPC Lobby, the head coaches' suite and even down to an individual locker in the football locker room.
"The athletic department and foundation really did the grunt work on that," Womack said. "There's some precedent, we've built a lot of construction (as a university) around here. So one thing you have to keep in mind is you have to make the giving levels equal between departments."
Womack said he was a bit surprised that naming rights haven't come up too often in his preliminary fundraising before the public launch, (The campaign has already raised $10,107,000 of its $15 million goal so far), but he suspects that once the facility is under construction, some folks might want to use the value of their gift for naming rights at that point in time, which is something he's perfectly happy to oblige.
"I know of one group that's working, they have a person in their group who's passed away, and they want to name something after him," Womack added. "So what we've told them is you can bundle, one person doesn't have to give the gift (on their own), you can take however many people it takes, and if you accumulate that amount of money, you get the naming opportunity."
Ahead for Middle Tennessee comes the work of finalizing the design of the SAPC, which will be headed up by GMC+HOK. The GMC part of the name, architecture and engineering firm Goodwyn Mills Cawood, was on hand at the ceremony with a team that featured multiple graduates of Middle Tennessee State's Interior Design program, including Paige Czirr, who graduated from the program in 2020.
"It's very exciting to be able to work on a project at home," Czirr said, mentioning that she never imagined a project like this was possible at MT during her time as a student.
GMC has a lot of experience in designing these types of facilities, Eric Scowden, senior architect with the firm, said. A quick look at their website's home page, featuring pictures of Clemson's $55 Million Football Facility, shows the pride the firm takes in these projects. GMC+HOK have worked on similar plans at Vanderbilt, Auburn, and Georgia, among other universities.
The next step now that the funding is secured and the project has received approval from the State Building Committee, Scowden said, will be for his team to start to assess the current infrastructure on the space the SAPC is planned for, and then to work on taking the renderings from the idea stage into more concrete architectural designs.
"We're going to immediately start getting an understanding of the existing facility," Scowden said. "Trying to get a lot of data accumulated in terms of things like actual dimensions, things that are realistic to what's currently built.
"Right now, the information that's available is fairly diagrammatic. The renderings look very clear from an exterior perspective, but the interior spaces haven't been specifically worked out. Once we get that pinned down, we'll start doing a series of construction documents that contractors can bid the project from."
Scowden, based out of the firm's Nashville office, said this type of project appealed to their team because of Middle Tennessee's importance to the Nashville area, as well as how the SAPC intersected with a lot of his team's interests.
"We're all interested in design, we're all interested in athletics, we're all interested in the scale of these projects. We're interested in the energy and dynamics of it all," Scowden said. "It's sort of a once in a lifetime opportunity for (MT). We have a lot of experience with this project type, so it fits our niche."
Middleton knew that it would take time for it to come to fruition. But now, as a GA on the equipment staff, Monday's public launch of the Build Blue Now campaign, alongside the announcement of the full funding for the $66 million Student Athlete Performance Center, meant he could finally see his alma mater's vision start to become reality.
"After I played here, being able to see it come to life, is really awesome," Middleton said. "I know all our coaches will be really thankful for it, because in the recruiting game, it helps them out a ton."
It's easy to see why former lettermen like Middleton were excited by the announcement last night. The Student-Athlete Performance Center (SAPC) will feature a plethora of amenities for all student-athletes, namely the remodeled weight room that will exist as a part of the facility, which will be built on the land where the current weight room and game day rooms adjacent to Floyd Stadium currently stand. But the SAPC will also house a myriad of direct upgrades for the football program's existing infrastructure, including new coaching offices, position meeting rooms, locker rooms and player lounges.
Of course, those upgrades open up the current football offices in the Murphy Center, which once filled by, say, the men's basketball program, then opens up their current offices to other coaches, leading to a net upgrade for everyone as part of the project. But there's no question that Rick Stockstill's football program stands to benefit greatly from the new home, which is projected to be ready ahead of the 2024 football season if everything goes to plan in the interim.
It's part of the reason Stockstill, along with his wife Sara, donated $500,000 to the Build Blue campaign, a move Middleton said didn't surprise him.
The new spaces, however, offer potential donors a lot of opportunities to perhaps name certain facilities, if that's something a donor might be interested in, Andy Womack, chair of the Build Blue campaign, said after the rally-style unveiling. The pamphlet available for BRAA members following the event listed options such as the SAPC Lobby, the head coaches' suite and even down to an individual locker in the football locker room.
"The athletic department and foundation really did the grunt work on that," Womack said. "There's some precedent, we've built a lot of construction (as a university) around here. So one thing you have to keep in mind is you have to make the giving levels equal between departments."
Womack said he was a bit surprised that naming rights haven't come up too often in his preliminary fundraising before the public launch, (The campaign has already raised $10,107,000 of its $15 million goal so far), but he suspects that once the facility is under construction, some folks might want to use the value of their gift for naming rights at that point in time, which is something he's perfectly happy to oblige.
"I know of one group that's working, they have a person in their group who's passed away, and they want to name something after him," Womack added. "So what we've told them is you can bundle, one person doesn't have to give the gift (on their own), you can take however many people it takes, and if you accumulate that amount of money, you get the naming opportunity."
Ahead for Middle Tennessee comes the work of finalizing the design of the SAPC, which will be headed up by GMC+HOK. The GMC part of the name, architecture and engineering firm Goodwyn Mills Cawood, was on hand at the ceremony with a team that featured multiple graduates of Middle Tennessee State's Interior Design program, including Paige Czirr, who graduated from the program in 2020.
"It's very exciting to be able to work on a project at home," Czirr said, mentioning that she never imagined a project like this was possible at MT during her time as a student.
GMC has a lot of experience in designing these types of facilities, Eric Scowden, senior architect with the firm, said. A quick look at their website's home page, featuring pictures of Clemson's $55 Million Football Facility, shows the pride the firm takes in these projects. GMC+HOK have worked on similar plans at Vanderbilt, Auburn, and Georgia, among other universities.
The next step now that the funding is secured and the project has received approval from the State Building Committee, Scowden said, will be for his team to start to assess the current infrastructure on the space the SAPC is planned for, and then to work on taking the renderings from the idea stage into more concrete architectural designs.
"We're going to immediately start getting an understanding of the existing facility," Scowden said. "Trying to get a lot of data accumulated in terms of things like actual dimensions, things that are realistic to what's currently built.
"Right now, the information that's available is fairly diagrammatic. The renderings look very clear from an exterior perspective, but the interior spaces haven't been specifically worked out. Once we get that pinned down, we'll start doing a series of construction documents that contractors can bid the project from."
Scowden, based out of the firm's Nashville office, said this type of project appealed to their team because of Middle Tennessee's importance to the Nashville area, as well as how the SAPC intersected with a lot of his team's interests.
"We're all interested in design, we're all interested in athletics, we're all interested in the scale of these projects. We're interested in the energy and dynamics of it all," Scowden said. "It's sort of a once in a lifetime opportunity for (MT). We have a lot of experience with this project type, so it fits our niche."
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