Some thoughts on the MAAC from an MU athlete
This was sent to me via e-mail from an MU student athlete who, obviously, put a lot of time and effort into these thoughts and asked it be placed on the blog.
I felt it was so well done it should stand alone...soo..here it is...
Just a couple of thoughts on the MAC controversy:
As an MU student, especially one who has lived off campus for the past few years, I do understand what a toll both the students and the University as a whole places on the surrounding community. We are outsiders who come in for the winter, stay four years, and then leave without thinking about the impact we make. As a collective group, I don't think that we as students realize just how much we affect our neighbors.
However, I also believe that we, as a student-body, contribute a great deal to those in the community. Whether it is tutoring students, hosting sports clinics and camps for kids or taking part in beach clean-ups, there are a number of ways that we give back to the surrounding neighborhoods. Now, I'm not saying that just because we participate in community service projects we have the right to demand that the MAC be built. That is entirely untrue. Yet shouldn't a relationship be based on give and take?
As an athlete, I am naturally all-for the MAC being built. Not only will it provide better, more sophisticated facilities for our sports programs and students, but it will give every member of the Monmouth community, both those who attend the university or are simply fans, a place to truly embrace. While our facilities now, especially Boylan Gym, serve the purposes they were built for, it is safe to assume that they are far below Division I program standards. And this goes far beyond the Gym itself. We also lack the strength and conditioning space, sports medicine facilities and locker-rooms that come with being a Division I school. From being in my fair share of athletic facilities over my four-year career as a collegiate athlete, I know what is good and what gets by, and what we have at MU is by far the latter.
Yet maybe this is exactly what the surrounding community is worried about: perhaps they see the MAC as just another step towards making MU even larger. Maybe they view the MAC as one more way for MU to make their presence in the community known. A facility like the MAC would certainly improve our status in the sports world, especially in terms of recruiting athletes to play here and having the ability to draw larger crowds to sporting events. Yet at the same time, I think the community also needs to remember that we are a small Division I program. Regardless of how great our facilities are or how big of an arena we have, we aren't trying to be Rutgers or Penn State. That's why student-athletes come to MU: it's an opportunity to play at the Division I level yet still have that small-school atmosphere. If our athletes wanted to go to a bigger school, there are plenty out there that would have been more than happy to take their tuition checks.
Having gone to a few of the board meetings, especially the one in November when residents were given the chance to have their voices heard, I was able to get a clear picture as to what many of the opposing arguments were about. It seemed to me that many of the problems were centered on traffic congestion, both during construction and then again when events would be held at the MAC, and how MU was planning to control the number of vehicles in and out of campus. It is understandable that residents in the community, especially those on the streets directly around the Monmouth campus, would be concerned with traffic. MU brings in a lot of people on a daily basis: whether it is driving to and from class, sporting events or other events held on campus, there are a great deal of cars on the streets. Yet is also my understanding that MU has agreed to do all the necessary things that would ease the potential traffic problems, including paying for extra police to guide cars out of the general vicinity, and that both the school’s and the town’s traffic experts have concluded that traffic issues would be less of a problem than people are making it seem. There is also the fact that many of the events hosted at the MAC would end later in the evening, thus placing less of a strain on traffic congestion in the area.
The issue of the number of full-capacity events allowed at the MAC was also raised, which ties into the previous traffic concerns. It was of some concern that, due to the large seating capacity of the new building, MU would feel the need to host events that would fill every seat. To accommodate the board, MU lowered the proposed number of full-capacity events from 25 to 16 in a calendar year. Since many of the “events” hosted would more than likely be both men’s and women’s home basketball games, as any Hawks fan can tell you, for a regular season home game, a draw of 2000 is a big deal. It is highly unlikely that a full-capacity crowd would be met on any regular basis. This is not in any way a knock to our basketball programs; it’s just simple facts and number crunching.
At the same meeting, I also heard a large number of residents stand up and speak FOR the building of the MAC, and it was great to hear so much support for something that seems so hated. It is obvious that there are those who are not in favor of the new facility, and they succeeded in voicing their concerns and getting their opinions heard, so to hear from those people who genuinely support the Monmouth community and the building of the MAC was like a breathe of fresh air.
I will never be able to use the MAC. Even if it does get built, I will never be able to fully take advantage of all that it has to offer to the Monmouth community. However, that doesn’t make me any less interested in seeing it built. As an athlete I know the pride that comes along with having first-class facilities, the kind of facilities other programs visit and say, “Wow, what a great building”, or “I wish we had a place like this.” While I myself will never lift a weight in its strength training room or get my ankles taped in the sports medicine center, I hope that future Monmouth Hawks will be allowed that opportunity.
e-mail tonygsports@aol.com
I felt it was so well done it should stand alone...soo..here it is...
Just a couple of thoughts on the MAC controversy:
As an MU student, especially one who has lived off campus for the past few years, I do understand what a toll both the students and the University as a whole places on the surrounding community. We are outsiders who come in for the winter, stay four years, and then leave without thinking about the impact we make. As a collective group, I don't think that we as students realize just how much we affect our neighbors.
However, I also believe that we, as a student-body, contribute a great deal to those in the community. Whether it is tutoring students, hosting sports clinics and camps for kids or taking part in beach clean-ups, there are a number of ways that we give back to the surrounding neighborhoods. Now, I'm not saying that just because we participate in community service projects we have the right to demand that the MAC be built. That is entirely untrue. Yet shouldn't a relationship be based on give and take?
As an athlete, I am naturally all-for the MAC being built. Not only will it provide better, more sophisticated facilities for our sports programs and students, but it will give every member of the Monmouth community, both those who attend the university or are simply fans, a place to truly embrace. While our facilities now, especially Boylan Gym, serve the purposes they were built for, it is safe to assume that they are far below Division I program standards. And this goes far beyond the Gym itself. We also lack the strength and conditioning space, sports medicine facilities and locker-rooms that come with being a Division I school. From being in my fair share of athletic facilities over my four-year career as a collegiate athlete, I know what is good and what gets by, and what we have at MU is by far the latter.
Yet maybe this is exactly what the surrounding community is worried about: perhaps they see the MAC as just another step towards making MU even larger. Maybe they view the MAC as one more way for MU to make their presence in the community known. A facility like the MAC would certainly improve our status in the sports world, especially in terms of recruiting athletes to play here and having the ability to draw larger crowds to sporting events. Yet at the same time, I think the community also needs to remember that we are a small Division I program. Regardless of how great our facilities are or how big of an arena we have, we aren't trying to be Rutgers or Penn State. That's why student-athletes come to MU: it's an opportunity to play at the Division I level yet still have that small-school atmosphere. If our athletes wanted to go to a bigger school, there are plenty out there that would have been more than happy to take their tuition checks.
Having gone to a few of the board meetings, especially the one in November when residents were given the chance to have their voices heard, I was able to get a clear picture as to what many of the opposing arguments were about. It seemed to me that many of the problems were centered on traffic congestion, both during construction and then again when events would be held at the MAC, and how MU was planning to control the number of vehicles in and out of campus. It is understandable that residents in the community, especially those on the streets directly around the Monmouth campus, would be concerned with traffic. MU brings in a lot of people on a daily basis: whether it is driving to and from class, sporting events or other events held on campus, there are a great deal of cars on the streets. Yet is also my understanding that MU has agreed to do all the necessary things that would ease the potential traffic problems, including paying for extra police to guide cars out of the general vicinity, and that both the school’s and the town’s traffic experts have concluded that traffic issues would be less of a problem than people are making it seem. There is also the fact that many of the events hosted at the MAC would end later in the evening, thus placing less of a strain on traffic congestion in the area.
The issue of the number of full-capacity events allowed at the MAC was also raised, which ties into the previous traffic concerns. It was of some concern that, due to the large seating capacity of the new building, MU would feel the need to host events that would fill every seat. To accommodate the board, MU lowered the proposed number of full-capacity events from 25 to 16 in a calendar year. Since many of the “events” hosted would more than likely be both men’s and women’s home basketball games, as any Hawks fan can tell you, for a regular season home game, a draw of 2000 is a big deal. It is highly unlikely that a full-capacity crowd would be met on any regular basis. This is not in any way a knock to our basketball programs; it’s just simple facts and number crunching.
At the same meeting, I also heard a large number of residents stand up and speak FOR the building of the MAC, and it was great to hear so much support for something that seems so hated. It is obvious that there are those who are not in favor of the new facility, and they succeeded in voicing their concerns and getting their opinions heard, so to hear from those people who genuinely support the Monmouth community and the building of the MAC was like a breathe of fresh air.
I will never be able to use the MAC. Even if it does get built, I will never be able to fully take advantage of all that it has to offer to the Monmouth community. However, that doesn’t make me any less interested in seeing it built. As an athlete I know the pride that comes along with having first-class facilities, the kind of facilities other programs visit and say, “Wow, what a great building”, or “I wish we had a place like this.” While I myself will never lift a weight in its strength training room or get my ankles taped in the sports medicine center, I hope that future Monmouth Hawks will be allowed that opportunity.
e-mail tonygsports@aol.com
posted by Tony Graham at 10:25 AM
4 Comments:
Wow, is the deepest thing that I can come up with right now. And if any of the zoning board people read this and not feel compassion or a difference of opinion, heartless, shameful and out-of-touch are the kindest things that can be said about them. This should be run in the Sunday's paper all over NJ. Student's unite let your voice be heard, if it speaks like this then it will speak volumes.
You just wonder after reading this..how it all came to this....
The following was sent in by a blogger.
I edited it a bit to tone down any personal reference to Mr. Fisher which I felt may have been somewhat disrespectful or assumed various motives by him or his neighbors -
From the blogger:
Since we're on the topic of the MAAC again, I just wanted very much to make this important point regarding Mr. Fisher's letter to you about 2 weeks ago which seems to have been overlooked in previous blog notes to you.
Mr. Fisher wrote on and on in his note about the hardships on his block caused by MU students parking there and disrupting deliveries, repairmen, and leaf collections.
I sympathize with him TO A DEGREE --- however, (and here's the point of my letter) THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MAAC !!! It's apples & oranges.
They can & should complain to the local police to get them addressed.
The MAAC, however, is simply a question of traffic flow -- which has been declared a non-problem by experts on BOTH sides.
The people going to MAAC events are NOT going to be parking on Mr. Fisher's (or any other street) -- they'll be parking in the MU lot.
In most cases, they won't even be traveling on his street to get to the MAAC.
Tony,
Great point from that last blogger!
It invalidates the entire letter Mr. Fisher sent to you complaining about the MAAC.
Mr. Fisher's street congestion has existed & will always exist as long as MU is there -- MAAC or no MAAC!
I know if I lived in that area & the problem was as bad as he suggests, I would have long ago had local police do something about it -- but the fact is, the MAAC will have no effect on the parking situation on his block. It is an entirely different issue.
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