Blacknbengal
Well-Known Member
Originally posted by bluphiiijsu
A heavy proposal
Weight room move ?doesn?t make sense?
By Josh Moon
Montgomery Advertiser
? It doesn?t have running water. It doesn?t have a ceiling or the proper flooring.:eek2: :eek2: A lot of work would have to be done and a lot of money spent to get that place ready to support a weight room.?
The possibility of the move has Cole fed up with the cutbacks he?s faced at ASU.
?I?m tired of fighting the stone walls around here,? Cole said. ?It seems like the more you progress, the more they cut back. If you?re going to have these athletic programs then you have to fund them. If you?re not going to do the things you need to do to be successful, then you need to get out of the game. ? :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:
What makes it so personal for Cole and his staff is the work they did to the building when no one else wanted it.
?We all put in some long days over there getting that place fixed up,? Novak said. ?We did all of that work ourselves. It didn?t look anything like it does now.?
Cole said before the work was done no one even knew the building existed.
?When we started all that work no one wanted that building,? he said. ?I bet there aren?t many people that even knew it was over there. There probably still aren?t many people around here that know it?s a weight room.?
While moving the weight room would a personal blow to Cole and all of the others who worked on the weight room, it would also be a serious blow to the football program as a whole, according to Cole.
ASU strength coach Jason Novak, left, and football coach L.C. Cole discuss concerns in their new proposed weight room.
?We?ve got nothing else to recruit with around here,? he said. ?We don?t have a stadium or off-campus housing. What are we going to use to attract these kids to ASU? That?s all we?ve got left. :eek2: :eek2: :bawling: :bawling: :bawling:
?If they move it over there and take the last recruiting tool we have, it will be a slow death for the football program.? :bawling: :bawling: :bawling:
The football team wouldn?t be the only athletic program hurt by the move, since several other athletic teams at ASU use the weight room.
Cole said it was only the administration at ASU that thinks of it as the football team?s weight room.
?They all want to say that we?re the only ones using that weight room,? Cole said. ?We?ve never claimed that weight room as our?s or kept any other team from using it. If they move it, they?ll hurt a lot of teams around here.?
While Cole and the coaching staff seem sure the move is imminent, officials at ASU don?t seem to be too sure about anything concerning the weight room. No one knows what will occupy the building if the weight room is moved, or where the final destination of the weight room will be.
?Several different things have been discussed,? ASU president Joe Lee said. ?We?ve talked about using the building as part of a new health studies expansion. The new spot for the weight room also hasn?t been decided. Several different things have been discussed. We?ve talked about constructing a new facility or expanding an existing one.?
According to Leon Frazier, who is the vice president of administrative services, the weight room was supposed to return to its original location in Lockhart Hall.
?We moved the weight room out of Lockhart Hall when we started renovations to that building in 1999,? he said. ?Where the weight room is now was never supposed to be its permanent location. The plan was to move it back to Lockhart Hall when the renovations were complete. .?
According to Frazier, renovations to Lockhart Hall are now ?98 percent complete? but there?s a small problem with the original plan to move the weight room back to its previous location.
?On the floor plans that I?ve seen for Lockhart, there is no place for a weight room,? Frazier said.
Cole said he?s happy the weight room isn?t back in Lockhart Hall.
?I?ve heard nightmare stories about that place,? he said. ?It wasn?t any bigger than a 10-by-10 room and I may be giving it too much credit. It was probably more like 8-by-8. That wasn?t really a weight room, it was more like a fitness center.?
Lee said a small fitness center is exactly what was on the plans to go into Lockhart Hall.
?The plan was never to move the weight room back into Lockhart,? he said. ?The only thing I know of going in there is a small fitness center. But that won?t be for athletes, just for students.? The plan was to move it back to Lockhart Hall when the renovations were complete. Which one are they doing? Moving back or not?
While Frazier and Lee disagree on the original plans for the weight room and both say they know nothing about what the final decision will be, they also both seem to know a lot more about what is going on than Cole.
?No one has said a word to me about anything,? Cole said. ?They haven?t told me anything about what?s going on. I guess maybe they were planning on telling me they were moving it after they started moving stuff out of the building over there.?
Both Frazier and Lee and said the final decisions would most likely be made at the May Board meeting.
Cole said that final decision may decide his fate at ASU.
?That decision will show if they want the program to move forward or not,? he said. ?If they want to keep doing things like they have been and keep the program from going forward then it?s time to get out. When you see that the program can?t advance, that?s when its time to go. There?s no sense in hanging around when the only move you can make is backwards .? :eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:
Well, ASSu. It seems that you can not keep your coach happy. With all the nutz swingin you two Bama Monkeys do, maybe, Apes and Monkeys can let you borrow their facilities. And I thought that you all had YOUR own stadium equipped with a weight room.
