Miami, Florida and Florida State all boast top-notch stadiums in a state that Baseball-Reference.com says sends the sixth-most collegiate players to the major leagues.

None of those facilities met Mike Spina’s standards.

The Newberry, Fla., native dismissed the Sunshine State’s three perennial top 25 programs specifically to play at Cincinnati’s three-year-old Marge Schott Stadium. He couldn’t resist the player’s lounge and training room, glass press box and FieldTurf. Especially the FieldTurf.

‘It makes you feel really good about yourself if you have a good facility,’ said Spina, an infielder who played at Florida Community College in Jacksonville the last two years. ‘It makes you look good. A lot of people come in and see the program and they say, ‘Wow.”

That’s exactly the response Cincinnati wanted from its $105 million Varsity Village, which drastically enhanced the school’s athletic facilities upon its completion last year.

Credit people with lots and lots and lots of money.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this month that donations to athletic departments rose to 26 percent of all university donations in 2003 from 15 percent in 1998. The country’s athletic departments raised $1.2 billion in 2006-07, with some departments raising three times more than at the start of the decade, the newspaper found. Those donations paid for most of the new buildings materializing everywhere.

All 16 of the Big East’s schools renovated or constructed new athletic facilities during the last two years or will do so during the next two. The new structures aren’t just for the moneymakers – football and men’s basketball – but the Olympic sports, as well.

‘There doesn’t seem to be any slow down even within this conference,’ Cincinnati athletic director Mike Thomas said. ‘If somebody does something, who is going to do it next?’

UC’s Varsity Village includes new digs for track and soccer, tennis and baseball. The centerpiece is the eight-story, glass Richard E. Lindner Center, which houses athletic offices, computers, a weight room, basketball practice courts and a UC sports museum.

Thomas recently announced plans for more football upgrades (new indoor practice facility, renovated press box and luxury suites at Nippert Stadium) on top of ones recently finished (new videoboard, grandstand and FieldTurf at Nippert).

The goal: convert UC from an urban, hoops-centric school into an all-around athletic power. There remains a long way to go, but the transformation could be under way.

Cincinnati’s 6-2 football team upset Rutgers for the second year in a row. The men’s soccer team won the Big East last year. A new student section called The Rally Caps fills the seats at baseball games.

‘Back then, nobody really cared too much about baseball,’ said UC left-hander Dan Osterbrock, an all-Big East pitcher who grew up in Cincinnati. ‘It was more of a basketball university. There weren’t many people at the games. It felt more like a high school baseball atmosphere.’

South Florida football experienced a similar environment when the program debuted in 1995. Now, in part because of an all-sports indoor training facility that opened in 2004, the 6-1 Bulls sit ahead of traditional powers Miami, Florida and Florida State in the current BCS standings at No. 10. Other schools want that direct reward, too.

A campaign at Pittsburgh calls for new or renovated wrestling (done), track and field, swimming and diving, soccer, baseball and softball homes. Connecticut opened two football facilities last year. Louisville is building a new basketball arena and renovating its football and field hockey stadiums. Notre Dame will erect an ice hockey arena, South Florida a softball stadium, Villanova a basketball practice facility. And so on.

Syracuse unveiled designs for a new basketball practice facility last month. The Carmelo K. Anthony Center may allow Manley Field House to eventually become an indoor practice area for football and the Olympic field sports.

Jeffrey Pauline, who covers facilities as an assistant professor of sport management in the College of Human Services and Health Professions at SU, approved of that idea because research says recruits want tangible evidence of a growing program.

‘That’s clearly what (SU) needs for the football team, which I want to say is behind the times in terms of not keeping up with the Joneses,’ Pauline said of the program with a 23-44 record since the start of the 2002 season. ‘Lots of northeastern schools and even schools in the Northwest have indoor practice facilities.’

All that said, state-of-the-art facilities are not a prerequisite for success.

UConn and Notre Dame men’s soccer fashion the No. 1 and No. 4 rankings in the country, respectively. Both teams play in stadiums experiencing only minor improvements recently.

West Virginia men’s soccer did parlay a newly renovated stadium in 2004 into an unbeaten conference mark and top 10 ranking for eight weeks last year – the Mountaineers’ best season ever. But assistant coach Bryan Green cut off a question on the team’s new home.

‘You do need (facilities), but at the same time, there’s a lot more that goes into the program – it’s one ingredient,’ Green said. ‘From a competitive standpoint, it doesn’t really help much except in the recruiting process it gets a little more initial interest. It doesn’t seal the deal on anyone.’

Consider SU’s most successful Olympic sports in the last few years: men’s and women’s lacrosse, cross country, men’s rowing and field hockey.

The FieldTurf installed two years ago in the Dome failed to further improve the already successful lacrosse teams. Cross country and men’s rowing matured into national relevancy without facility upgrades of note. And Coyne Field’s 2005 addition of field hockey-specific AstroTurf could not save former coach Kathleen Parker’s job.

First-year field hockey coach Ange Bradley, who arrived from Richmond after going 42-0 in conference play, deserves the credit for the team’s best start (7-1) since 1990 and top 20 ranking for a month this season.

Freshman Maggie Befort, the team’s leading scorer, rebuffed original choice Richmond to follow Bradley, who attracted a huge 11-woman recruiting class.

‘It comes down to the team and executing,’ said Befort, whose team sits at 12-5 and qualified for the Big East tournament. ‘I don’t think having nice facilities or a nice water turf (matters too much). A turf, a ball and a stick. That’s all you need, right?’

And let’s not forget the new weight-training facility primarily for football players that opened after the Orange’s 1-10 campaign in 2005. Coach Greg Robinson, 6-14 the last two seasons, could be fighting for his job.

Other factors matter to recruits, too, obviously, such as family, teammates and academics. Spina, for instance, also picked UC for its notable criminal justice program.

‘I think there are athletes who do make their decisions based on more than facilities,’ Cincinnati baseball coach Brian Cleary said. ‘But it’s incredibly difficult to overcome poor facilities.’

All this begs the ultimate question: Why are Olympic sports so important to universities? Sparkling facilities make sense for football and men’s basketball. But why commit millions of dollars to sports that do not support themselves financially?

‘(Sports are) probably the No. 1 marketing tool for most institutions, especially when things are going well,’ said Thomas, who wrote his doctoral dissertation two decades ago in part on the importance of facilities. ‘Even at Syracuse when they had the (men’s basketball) national championship a few years back (2003), you couldn’t put a price on the exposure the school got.’

Thomas, who took the job in 2005, launched a department-wide goal last year of winning a Big East title in every sport within five years. UC’s tally so far: 1 for 18.

‘The days of just a good experience (are over),’ Cleary said of Olympic sports. ‘The expectations are so much greater than they’ve ever been. Everybody is being charged with winning championships.’

Which, to state the obvious, can’t happen. It’s a zero-sum game. Even if each program opens a new stadium, some schools will win and some will lose – a high price to pay without a guarantee for success.

Cincinnati finished 196th (15th in the Big East; Seton Hall not ranked) in the 2006-07 Director’s Cup, awarded to the most successful athletic department based on achievement in all sports. Furthermore, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported last month the UC athletic department lost $5.7 million last year and does not project to break even until 2010.

Cleary’s best teams (1999-2001) were, by his own definition, made of up mediocre recruiting classes (even including star Kevin Youkilis, now of the Boston Red Sox) that happened to mesh well playing home games in a mediocre stadium.

But UC regressed to 28-28 last season after its fourth-ever 32-win campaign in 2006.

Safe to say Cleary needs quite a few additional Mike Spinas in order to fulfill Thomas’ mandate to win the Big East by 2011. But hey, if a lot more recruits gaze in astonishment at Marge Schott Stadium and the Lindner Center, never say never.

‘I was actually very surprised since it’s a long way from home and I came here,’ Spina said. ‘As soon as I got here and met everybody and saw everything, I was like, ‘This is the place for me.”

Published on October 22, 2007 at 12:00 pm

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