Post by elp525 on May 6, 2011 7:29:54 GMT -5
Friday May 6, 2011
by Mike Casazza
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN - There are things in life you never think you'll do, West Virginia women's soccer Coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said. Some are things you want to do and many others are things you're asked to do.
A few are both.
What Izzo-Brown is witnessing before her 16th season is the final phase of a building project she wanted for many years and one for which the WVU coach was made largely responsible.
The team's facility, weather permitting, is scheduled for completion in August - just in time for the 2011 season.
In the fall of 2009, Izzo-Brown was asked to raise more than $1.1 million for the construction, which was originally budgeted at $2.1 million. She did it in eight months.
"How about that on my grave?" she said.
For years and years, Izzo-Brown and her counterparts, men's Coach Marlon LeBlanc and some who preceded him, had to share a practice field behind the baseball stadium at the WVU Coliseum complex.
Imagine the challenges of both time and technique.
"There were two sports using one field and at the end of the year it was always unplayable," said Izzo-Brown, who is 207-82-32 at WVU. "We had to finish our postseason the last five or six years using the football team's practice field."
In early 2008, Izzo-Brown and the former university administration agreed the teams needed their own space. Izzo-Brown was to go first. A practice field was developed across Jerry West Boulevard and behind Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
Izzo-Brown's Mountaineers began practicing there before last season. They won the Big East Conference tournament championship and advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
"The stakes were high, but I guess all my complaining wore off," she said. "The deal was if you give us a new facility, we'll give you championships."
The work was not done, though, and the final touch of the project was an on-site facility that contained a training area, office space, a team lounge, a locker room and storage for maintenance equipment.
Izzo-Brown was asked to raise almost all of the money and said she secured the required amount last June.
"It was all about asking," she said. "I wish it was bake sales and things like that. It would have been a little easier.
"Obviously we don't have a very big alumni base yet, so you look to friends of soccer, to alumni and we started there. I'm also very blessed to have a lot of good friends to soccer. Honestly, it was a lot of burning the midnight oil."
LeBlanc's program still uses the practice field it once shared with the women's team, but it's been completely redone this offseason. The men's program doesn't have a facility like the women, although that may change.
Niles Eggelston, the assistant athletic director for development and executive director of the Mountaineer Athletic Club, said WVU is in the beginning stage of planning a facility at the Coliseum complex that would incorporate elements of all teams except football, women's soccer and men's and women's basketball, which have, or soon will have, their own space.
"We're beginning to develop a game plan and hopefully move forward to provide something for all those sports," Eggelston said.
Eggelston said WVU studied a similar facility at the University of South Florida when WVU's men's basketball team was in Tampa, Fla., for the NCAA Tournament in March.
"It's beautiful. It's awesome," he said. "We want the best for our student-athletes and we feel like a complex in the space at the Coliseum can provide that."
If it happens, it becomes a competitive advantage in terms of perception, morale and especially recruiting. Izzo-Brown has seen the bump already just by being able to talk about and point at the project she's helped create.
"Obviously, with us finishing seventh in the country this year and winning the Big East, we're going against championship teams and those programs definitely have the best facilities," she said. "There's no question we lost a lot of recruits to programs that had women's soccer facilities. But those battles where we were beaten, those issues we've had, they're in the past. It's a huge relief for us to have a great space to call our own now."
LeBlanc also believed prospects were choosing other schools because his program couldn't offer the same luxuries. Eventually, LeBlanc learned to adapt.
"When we had a recruit in, we'd pull into the parking lot and show them the field and keep on driving," said LeBlanc, who is 52-31-18 in five seasons. "We didn't want to take them to the practice field because we didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't something we wanted to highlight."
His teams learned to live with it and LeBlanc said the muddy, bumpy and worn-out areas forced the players to really focus on the fundamental and technical aspects of the game.
"But then you'd be working on a passing sequence and it would die because the ball took a wicked hop the other way," he said.
The practice field is still 10 yards shy of the 80-yard regulation width and the team can't properly practice many set pieces, which are a pretty significant part of the game. The field can't be expanded, either, because the scoreboard in the outfield at Hawley Field takes up the needed space.
"When you go out to Dick Dlesk and see a corner kick come up short, a lot of that has to do with training," he said. "It's a narrow pitch and that extra 5 yards is huge. When you see a corner kick at Dick Dlesk that doesn't clear the first defender or the guy guarding the goal on the near post, on the practice field that might be in the middle of the goal."
The new practice surface is a help, though. The old grass, which was several years old, was removed and the surface was leveled before a thicker blend of Kentucky bluegrass was put in place. A penalty box also was added. The project was budgeted for $150,000.
"From the standpoint of seeing the women's facility go up and knowing we were at least able to get a new surface down, what that's done for morale, we felt it was just as important for them to get out and train on a proper field," LeBlanc said. "I'm looking forward to it. I know they're looking forward to it and appreciate it."
by Mike Casazza
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN - There are things in life you never think you'll do, West Virginia women's soccer Coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said. Some are things you want to do and many others are things you're asked to do.
A few are both.
What Izzo-Brown is witnessing before her 16th season is the final phase of a building project she wanted for many years and one for which the WVU coach was made largely responsible.
The team's facility, weather permitting, is scheduled for completion in August - just in time for the 2011 season.
In the fall of 2009, Izzo-Brown was asked to raise more than $1.1 million for the construction, which was originally budgeted at $2.1 million. She did it in eight months.
"How about that on my grave?" she said.
For years and years, Izzo-Brown and her counterparts, men's Coach Marlon LeBlanc and some who preceded him, had to share a practice field behind the baseball stadium at the WVU Coliseum complex.
Imagine the challenges of both time and technique.
"There were two sports using one field and at the end of the year it was always unplayable," said Izzo-Brown, who is 207-82-32 at WVU. "We had to finish our postseason the last five or six years using the football team's practice field."
In early 2008, Izzo-Brown and the former university administration agreed the teams needed their own space. Izzo-Brown was to go first. A practice field was developed across Jerry West Boulevard and behind Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
Izzo-Brown's Mountaineers began practicing there before last season. They won the Big East Conference tournament championship and advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
"The stakes were high, but I guess all my complaining wore off," she said. "The deal was if you give us a new facility, we'll give you championships."
The work was not done, though, and the final touch of the project was an on-site facility that contained a training area, office space, a team lounge, a locker room and storage for maintenance equipment.
Izzo-Brown was asked to raise almost all of the money and said she secured the required amount last June.
"It was all about asking," she said. "I wish it was bake sales and things like that. It would have been a little easier.
"Obviously we don't have a very big alumni base yet, so you look to friends of soccer, to alumni and we started there. I'm also very blessed to have a lot of good friends to soccer. Honestly, it was a lot of burning the midnight oil."
LeBlanc's program still uses the practice field it once shared with the women's team, but it's been completely redone this offseason. The men's program doesn't have a facility like the women, although that may change.
Niles Eggelston, the assistant athletic director for development and executive director of the Mountaineer Athletic Club, said WVU is in the beginning stage of planning a facility at the Coliseum complex that would incorporate elements of all teams except football, women's soccer and men's and women's basketball, which have, or soon will have, their own space.
"We're beginning to develop a game plan and hopefully move forward to provide something for all those sports," Eggelston said.
Eggelston said WVU studied a similar facility at the University of South Florida when WVU's men's basketball team was in Tampa, Fla., for the NCAA Tournament in March.
"It's beautiful. It's awesome," he said. "We want the best for our student-athletes and we feel like a complex in the space at the Coliseum can provide that."
If it happens, it becomes a competitive advantage in terms of perception, morale and especially recruiting. Izzo-Brown has seen the bump already just by being able to talk about and point at the project she's helped create.
"Obviously, with us finishing seventh in the country this year and winning the Big East, we're going against championship teams and those programs definitely have the best facilities," she said. "There's no question we lost a lot of recruits to programs that had women's soccer facilities. But those battles where we were beaten, those issues we've had, they're in the past. It's a huge relief for us to have a great space to call our own now."
LeBlanc also believed prospects were choosing other schools because his program couldn't offer the same luxuries. Eventually, LeBlanc learned to adapt.
"When we had a recruit in, we'd pull into the parking lot and show them the field and keep on driving," said LeBlanc, who is 52-31-18 in five seasons. "We didn't want to take them to the practice field because we didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't something we wanted to highlight."
His teams learned to live with it and LeBlanc said the muddy, bumpy and worn-out areas forced the players to really focus on the fundamental and technical aspects of the game.
"But then you'd be working on a passing sequence and it would die because the ball took a wicked hop the other way," he said.
The practice field is still 10 yards shy of the 80-yard regulation width and the team can't properly practice many set pieces, which are a pretty significant part of the game. The field can't be expanded, either, because the scoreboard in the outfield at Hawley Field takes up the needed space.
"When you go out to Dick Dlesk and see a corner kick come up short, a lot of that has to do with training," he said. "It's a narrow pitch and that extra 5 yards is huge. When you see a corner kick at Dick Dlesk that doesn't clear the first defender or the guy guarding the goal on the near post, on the practice field that might be in the middle of the goal."
The new practice surface is a help, though. The old grass, which was several years old, was removed and the surface was leveled before a thicker blend of Kentucky bluegrass was put in place. A penalty box also was added. The project was budgeted for $150,000.
"From the standpoint of seeing the women's facility go up and knowing we were at least able to get a new surface down, what that's done for morale, we felt it was just as important for them to get out and train on a proper field," LeBlanc said. "I'm looking forward to it. I know they're looking forward to it and appreciate it."
