Complex good idea

Sports complex brings business and please to ‘Burg

From Left Field

Build the brand new sports complex at Port Republic Road and Neff Avenue. There is plenty of space and the business opportunities would be plentiful. There can be local shops, restaurants, a hotel and even bars from which of-age students can enjoy their favorite beverage in celebration of a Dukes’ win, or use that beverage for personal comfort after a loss.

Who knows, a "college strip" might even develop around the new basketball arena/civic center and baseball stadium.

If someone builds it, other someones will come. Never has the development of new sports venues been a detriment to a community. The only drawback I can think of is the traffic situation, but I hear they can do incredible things with road widening. Besides, for students, the complex is within walking distance of a large clump of apartments.

If anyone questions the power or purpose of athletics on a college campus, look at it academically. Sports are a school’s best advertisement. They are the most visible representation of a university. As far as JMU is concerned, those four weeks of television exposure while the Dukes made their run to the I-AA national championship put Madison’s name out there like no high school visit could — not to mention the increased coverage from papers not called The Breeze or the Daily News-Record. The day after JMU beat Montana, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran about four pages devoted to the Dukes’ national title. Anyone want to guess how many high schools are in Richmond?

People want to be associated with winners and well-known schools. And after next year, I’d bet my left kidney the number of applicants to JMU skyrockets. It’s kind of nice that Student Ambassadors don’t have to say, "Our sports teams suck, but D-hall is all-you-can-eat."

The football program now has the Athletic Performance Center in one end zone. Nice facilities are associated with winning programs. Even William & Mary is putting in lights now, trying to catch up their 1920s stadium to at least the 1960s.

The current Convocation Center is nice, but pales when compared to the venues of, say, Virginia Commonwealth or Old Dominion. I once heard that the Convo was originally supposed to be UREC, but Godwin Hall got too small for basketball purposes. So we play in a converted fitness club. Awesome.

The new basketball arena could double as a civic center, much in the same fashion as the Richmond Coliseum — only it wouldn’t be a dump.

For baseball, the current Long Field/Mauck Stadium is an antiquated field confused between actual grass and turf that looks like actual grass. The scenery surrounding the park includes I-81, chain-link fences and a parking lot, while the stadium itself is a launching pad for broken car windows.

Few sports venues provide more for distinction than a baseball park. They have nuance and quirks, some nice, some not.

The reason for this? Baseball fields are funny-shaped.

All the other fields are rectangles and have no room to mess around. One fun thing JMU could do to personalize its diamond would be to build the entire thing out of bluestone — something distinctly Madison.

And while we’re at it, build everything out of bluestone. It’s pretty. And get the minor league baseball team too. A professional baseball team would only enhance that potential local business scene, as that would put a sports presence at the complex in the summer. If only someone with money decides that change isn’t so horrible.