Ole Miss Athletics Press Conference Transcript

April 15, 2003

Opening Remarks
Chancellor Dr. Robert Khayat
Thanks to everybody for coming out today. This is an exciting day at Ole Miss, one we have been looking forward to for a while. Anytime an institutional organization begins to move in a very positive direction you've got to be sure you have three components. One, you have got to have great people. You have to have wonderful leadership -- people that are involved in a variety of ways, not only in leadership roles, but in support roles as well. Secondly, your programs have to be of the highest quality. You have to be committed to being as good as you can possibly be, whether you are a history department or a basketball program. Third, you have to have the kinds of facilities that are comparable to the quality of programs, players and coaches or teachers, regardless of what particular area you are in.

Ole Miss has been committed for a number of years now to strengthening all of those areas, attracting and entertaining the very best people, strengthening the programs, being nationally competitive academically and in student life and in athletics and alumni programs and of course in enhancing facilities. This press conference today is located in the South End Zone, which is an example of the kinds of enhancement that has taken place with the facilities at Ole Miss over the last few years. We are excited about the beginning of construction at the indoor practice facility. We have talked about it for several years.

We have a number of people that have been involved in the process who are graduates or friends of the University that have made significant contributions or commitments. It is a $17 million project. We are about half way in having it funded. It will be paid for totally with private funds. We believe we are ready to begin moving forward on phase one. I would underscore phase one because the way the University operates is you avoid deficits. Everything has to be paid for. The money has to be in the bank before you can move forward. We will be giving you more detail about that today and in the days ahead.

The design of the project has been underway for a good while. There has been a lot of input from the parties involved. Our coaches, our support staff and a variety of others who need to have their feelings known by the design people have produced what we think is an attractive and functional plan that is consistent with the needs of the different sports that will be using the facility. We have gone through a process of evaluating proposals from the contractor, and we are happy to announce that White Construction Company will be building the facility for us. Guy White is here today as is Reed Nelson. The person who will have primary responsibility for oversight of this project and seeing it through with regard to the funding and completion of the facility is our Director of Athletics Pete Boone. I will yield the microphone at this point to our Director of Athletics and tell the world again how pleased I am that Pete Boone is back with us.

Director of Athletics Pete Boone
Chancellor, the road to success is really a journey as we have all heard. This is just one step in that. It started back in 1995. Each of you has seen the different steps along the road. This is a major step. It is an important step. It is one we have worked through, I hope, intelligently. It is one we have certainly worked through to make sure we are not making a mistake. This particular facility is one that is important to be done right, with the same sort of quality that the Chancellor is doing every other project at the University of Mississippi. We are excited about it.

I am going to diverse a little bit from this and talk about other projects we are excited about. As funding becomes available, we hope to do several other projects as we go forward. Today you will also hear about the stadium turf we will have at Vaught-Hemingway, another case of where we are trying to do what is the in the best interest of the student-athlete. We are trying to do what is in the best interest of our overall athletics department, and we are also trying to be fiscally sound.

The other things we are looking at here, you will see the construction that is going on with our track. They are building a stadium and coaches' offices there. That whole project is about $3.5 million. Down the road we are going to be looking at the Physical Plant moving. In a couple of years, we are looking at moving our athletics administration offices into that area north of the stadium. This is just one step at a time.

To me, one of the most significant projects that won't cost as much as some of the others is the new academic center that we hope to be building when our athletes and coaches move out of the field house. The locker rooms and the coaches' offices that we have there we hope to transform into a wonderful environment for learning. We have over 400 student-athletes here, and our primary task is for them to grow and get their education here.

This is just one step. It is an important step. It is going to be a lot of fun to see it happen. I think it is something the Ole Miss faithful will step up to the plate on. We will get it all done and get it started soon. We will move forward with it and let the world see what is happening here at Ole Miss. We have a lot of wonderful things happening and a lot of wonderful things that are going to be happening here. The person that is going to be using the facility the most is Coach David Cutcliffe. He has had a lot of input in the design of it. He has been in integral part of working with the architects, with G.G. (Ferguson) and his group. I would now like to turn it over to Coach Cutcliffe.

Football Head Coach David Cutcliffe
Thanks, Pete. If I am just grinning a lot, bear with me. It is a great day and a happy day. I would first like to thank Dr. Khayat and Pete for their great leadership. Dr. Khayat mentioned that it starts with great people, and we certainly have great people in place. I want to thank all of the people that have worked tirelessly on these projects. It is an exciting time. We are right at the doorstep of a great opportunity that we certainly intend to take advantage of. What this is all about is putting our quality athletes, quality young people in the very best facilities to help them to be the best they can be. That is what we want this to be. That is what we are 100 percent committed to. They deserve the best. We want to also thank all of the athletes, the former athletes that may not use this facility right now, but have created this tradition at Ole Miss and meant so much to Ole Miss through the years. Everybody has a piece in this. That is how you create tradition. As I have said time and time again, leaving a place better than you found it is important. Making sure every day you are getting better, and certainly there are a lot of people that have been involved with building this tradition though the years. I will be glad to entertain questions right now."

Q: Can you give us a tentative date when Phase One will begin?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) Phase One will begin the first week in May. That makes me smile. That is not too far away.

Q: What is the length of project?
A: (Guy White, contractor) Phase One will take nine months and Phase Two will take three months, so a total of 12 months. That should put us around February of being in the indoor field.

Q: What is Phase One exactly and what is Phase Two?
A: (G.G. Ferguson, architect) Phase One entails the barn area. The large structure that houses the indoor field. Phase Two is the support facilities around the barn. In nine months, we are hoping to get the field ready to play on while they are completing the rest of the project. That will give Coach Cutcliffe and the team a better opportunity to get in it in the spring and use it then if they need to.

Q: Were you able to accommodate the coaches on everything that they wanted (in the new facility)?
A: (Pete Boone) We had good discussions on separating wants from needs. If you look at the things we're going to be providing, some are unique. We are putting a weight room in there, a banquet facility in there. One of the most unique things is the players' lounge. One of the concerns we have now is the student-athletes don't get the opportunity to know each other since there is no longer an athletic dorm. They don't get to know each other as well because the only place they see each other is on the field. A lot of other schools have done this, so it's not unique (nationally) but it is for us. We will have a players' lounge where they can come and relax. The lounge will have some televisions for them to watch, along with computers and areas for them to study.

There will be coaches' offices, a 150-person locker room, an equipment room and training rooms. We have passed out an information sheet on this. The training rooms will have the most updated rehab equipment. I will let Coach Cutcliffe talk more on the coaches' offices.

If you'll remember, this project started out at $25 million, and that may have been the coaches' wants or the architects'. I will let Coach Cutcliffe or the architects talk about the other areas of the facility.

(Coach Cutcliffe): We are trying to put our players in the best situation to be the best they can be, and that's what this facility will do. That's what the coaches' needs and wants are. We haven't cut quality at all in my mind, if that is what you are getting at. I was involved with G.G. (Ferguson) from the beginning, and after we went over it several times, we came back with as quality of a facility as you can possibly build for a much better price.

I'm very positive about what we're doing. I don't think you could build a finer facility that is functional and provides aesthetics to the campus.

Q: You said you were halfway funded. Is Phase One funded and what is the cost?
A: (Pete Boone) We're using a multitude of avenues. We're working with a bank about getting a construction loan. We will have the facility funded as far as having commitments and pledges. But, we are allowing some pledges to be stretched out over 2-to-3 years, so there will be some financing that will go until those pledges are paid. The pledges are structured and have dates of payment.

We'll be using a multitude of financing instruments to be able to be the project started now, and then as pledges come in, we'll finish it. We hope - and I am going out on a limb here - in the next 30-to-45 days we'll have some things in place that we'll have a majority of these commitments.

Q: I would like Coach Cutcliffe to comment on the new field turf and why the decision was made to go to this surface?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) Initially, it had something to do with us playing in the Independence Bowl, and we're getting the same type of surface. There are a lot of types of this synthetic grass. It's the same surface that is at the Independence Bowl. We held every practice - except for the one we held under the stands - on that turf. Of course, we played the game on that turf. Our players and coaches fell in love with it. From that time, (Asst. AD/Facilities) Blake Barnes and I met with some people.

We researched this in a lot of different ways. We researched it from the National Football League (NFL) standpoint, and found out what the players, coaches and trainers feel about the surface. We also talked with other college football programs around the country that are either practicing on it regularly or playing on it, and we compiled all those different sources of information to come up with what we think is the best playing surface. We think we're the cutting edge with this. I like the consistency of it compare to grass. Grass is going to surface damage throughout the year. We're a football team that is speed-oriented, and we're going to continue to be speed-oriented. We think it's a great surface for us to compete on. We look at it as an edge for us all the way around, and we couldn't be more excited about that. Our players are extremely excited about it, and they have known about it for a couple of days.

We'll have this surface in the stadium, the indoor practice facility and a small area on our current practice fields. That area will be used as a drill area for us. We're excited and committed to it.

Q: When is the turf going to be put in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) Blake Barnes is here and said that the equipment (for placing the turf) will be here Thursday, and I think the completion (of the installation) is about 60 days. We'll have it ready for our players to work on it this summer. It's a great tool from a conditioning standpoint. It's also great for our players to work on during their individual workouts this summer. There are a number of great benefits with this surface. You can work on it year-round outside, and it gives great wet weather work that you need. There are numerous advantages to using this surface.

Q: About 15-to-20 years ago, there was a movement away from artificial turf. I understand this is a different kind of turf. How is it different and safer than the old astroturf?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) First of all, it's not anything like the other product. It's 100 percent different. You are wearing the same shoes that you would on a regular grass field. It's a more consistent surface than grass. Your foot gives and moves just like it would when it is planted on a grass field.

The old surface (Astroturf) was really abrasive. Anybody that played on it can tell you that you would get burned, scratched and cut. It was a hard surface. This is a soft surface, non-abrasive to the players. There is a pad that goes under the surface so that the shock absorbency is better than grass, especially when the grass field wears.

So, from every aspect, it has the same type of performance that a tremendous grass field would give you when it is 100 percent top rate condition. This surface stays in that condition year-round, and it gives you the consistency that a first class grass field would give you.

There is no comparison to the old (artificial) turf. As we all know, turf lost favor with people, and people went in another direction. So, they found a better way and have come up with a great product.

Q: Besides the Independence Bowl, do you know what other schools have this turf?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) I can't tell you exactly. But, I think Oklahoma State is playing on it. War Memorial (Stadium) in Little Rock has the exact same turf. You have Nebraska, Kansas State and NFL teams like the Seahawks have this turf. Also, a lot of people are practicing on it. I know it's in the practice facilities at Alabama and Arkansas, to name a couple.

Q: When you had the old turf, you had a competitive edge. Do you see this same competitive edge with this turf?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) You're not having to put on a different shoe to play so there may not be as much of a competitive edge. When we are playing on this surface all the time and our opponents aren't, it may give us a little edge. You are always looking for a little edge anywhere you can, especially in our league.

Q: Did you go to this turf because you liked or were injuries and cost factored in?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) It was a combination of things. I had never been with a team that had practiced or played on this surface (before the Independence Bowl). I had talked with some people, and I had mentioned it to Pete (Boone) back in the fall. I had talked with some other coaches that had the surface and just raved about it. I thought it was at least worth investigating. We investigated the possibilities of the practice field and then the game field. We want the highest performance surface for our athletes, and also the best and safest surface to play on. After a lot of investigating, we came up that this is the best surface for our players to compete on.

Q: Are you breaking even or making money with the new turf?
A: (Pete Boone) We view it as an investment. The financial considerations are important. We are going to have the stadium field, the indoor practice field and a 30-yard strip on the current practice fields. It will cost 1 ? times what one field would cost, and we're getting two fields and a portion of another. The number for all three will be around $700,000-$750,000.

Now, how are we going to pay for it? We spending about $50,000-$60,000 a year for maintenance on the stadium field, painting and preparing it for gamedays. It doesn't take a strong mathematician to figure it out. If you take the stadium field by itself which is about $500,000 and you divide that into 8-to-10 years, we're going to break even on that because this surface will last over that period of time. In addition, we're getting an indoor surface and another strip for around $250,000 more.

Q: Will there be a permanent design on the field?
A: (Pete Boone) The Chancellor and I have looked at a design. We have Ole Miss in the end zones and UM in the middle and have the SEC logos at the 25-yard lines.

Q: What is the life expectancy of the surface?
A: (Pete Boone) The guarantee is eight years. AstroPlay is the name of this particular surface.

Q: Which company makes the surface?
A: (Pete Boone) SRI Industries.

Q: Can the field have unlimited use?
A: (Coach Cutcliffe) The design is actually stitched in and not painted on. Once it's in, our players will have a great surface to work on in the summer. There are going to plenty of opportunities for us to use it besides on gameday.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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