Montagne Center still going strong in 25th year

[Guest coachacola]

Great article from Gary Laney in the Beaumont Enterprise:

Here's the thing: These days, the trend for those with the resources to build new arenas, especially at the mid-major college level, is to get away from those multi-use monstrosities and move toward more intimate, sport-specific venues. Arkansas-Little Rock moved out of a giant municipal arena for a comfy on-campus 5,000-seater with plush seating and not a bad view in the building. Same with Gonzaga.

Lamar did it way, way before it was cool, really some 15-20 years before its design would become the trend.

In those interim years, one might point at a lot of instances where Lamar basketball went off the rails.

Maybe you would say it was when it left the Southland Conference for the American South Conference. Hell, maybe you'd say it's when LU came back to the SLC.

You might even argue that the worse thing to happen to Cardinals basketball was what stopped having right outside the Montagne Center, when football stopped. Remember the phrase "The Marquette of the South?"

Some might even sum it up with two words: "Mike Newell."

What you shouldn't say is that it has anything to do with the Montagne. With the arena, Lamar did everything right - except maybe locating it in front of railroad tracks and with an industrial part of town as a backdrop.

I couldn't have said it better, except they do need a nice video scoreboard.

Link: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/local/montagne_center_still_going_strong_in_25th_year_10-16-2008.html

[Guest abovetherim]

Now, that is a good article to read. There isn't a SLC arena close to being as nice as the Montagne Center. Since a man who covered McNeese for several years wrote it maybe some posters will now acknowledge the validity of the statement.

The Montagne Center is the crown jewel of not only the Lamar campus but the SLC as well.

[BLUEDOVE3]

See, I told you guys in an earlier post of mine that Lamar needs to hide that dreadful view of Mobil behind it, expecially when LU  have some quality recruits visit the campus. The article agrees with me. Yeah, I know it's not Mobil back there but it's all the same to me. A chemical company with smoking stacks.

[UNLV]

How do you hide it? Double deck the east side of Cardinal stadium?  Redwood trees?  The great wall of SETX? $5 Billion bond

to relocate the campus?  Paint a beautiful picture on the sides of the refiniery to give an illusion of it not being there?

Take $1 billion in hush money from Exxon-mobil and ignore it....

[AggiesAreWe]

How do you hide it? Double deck the east side of Cardinal stadium?  Redwood trees?  The great wall of SETX? $5 Billion bond

to relocate the campus?  Paint a beautiful picture on the sides of the refiniery to give an illusion of it not being there?

Take $1 billion in hush money from Exxon-mobil and ignore it....

This has got to be UNLV's greatest post ever. The $1 billion hush money is an excellant idea.

Bluedove, care to answer any of UNLV's questions.

[Guest coachacola]

How do you hide it? Double deck the east side of Cardinal stadium?  Redwood trees?  The great wall of SETX? $5 Billion bond

to relocate the campus?  Paint a beautiful picture on the sides of the refiniery to give an illusion of it not being there?

Take $1 billion in hush money from Exxon-mobil and ignore it....

This has got to be UNLV's greatest post ever. The $1 billion hush money is an excellant idea.

Bluedove, care to answer any of UNLV's questions.

I'll take a stab at it. 

1.  The campus master plan calls for planting trees along the back of the property behind the stadium and Montagne Center.  That will not completely hide the refinery but will help obscure it.  One of the documents gave details about a certain type of tree that grows fast and tall but I don't remember where I saw that at.

2.  They'll probably add suites to Cardinal Stadium.  They could easily put them on the east side of the stadium, although I like the idea of an upper deck.

3.  They could also add a berm behind the parking lot and then plant trees on it.  A 8 to 10 foot grassy berm shouldn't cost that much, just need to haul in dirt, then plant grass and trees on it.  That would hide most of the trains along with cutting down the noise from them.  Maybe put a fence on top of the berm to block even more of the view.

One thing I think they should have done is built the Montagne Center into the ground, like the football stadium.  Now you walk up about 10 foot so you get a nice view of the refinery.  But there's nothing they can do about that now.

[Guest abovetherim]

I've got a question for AggiesAreWe. My nephew who is attending Lamar went out and visited a friend attending the College Station campus. I was told his friend lived in a dorm were they have a bunk bed in each room and community shower. Yep, all the guys shower in one location. Reminds me of my time in the military.

Does the athletic dept there show the recruits those dorms?

Heck no, they don't and the sad thing is he is paying as much for those dorms as my nephew is in Cardinal Village.

Every campus there are areas which are less desirable than others.

I would say he saw a good football game but the Aggies aren't too good this year.

I asked my nephew if he still wished he could attend A&M and he said, "Nope".

[Guest abovetherim]

See, I told you guys in an earlier post of mine that Lamar needs to hide that dreadful view of Mobil behind it, expecially when LU  have some quality recruits visit the campus. The article agrees with me. Yeah, I know it's not Mobil back there but it's all the same to me. A chemical company with smoking stacks.

So how would you "hide that dreadful view"? I'd love to hear this idea. I know it would come from someone with a high intellect! 

[fatelvis04]

How do you hide it? Double deck the east side of Cardinal stadium?  Redwood trees?  The great wall of SETX? $5 Billion bond

to relocate the campus?  Paint a beautiful picture on the sides of the refiniery to give an illusion of it not being there?

Take $1 billion in hush money from Exxon-mobil and ignore it....

It's not often that I agree with UNLV, but I can't agree with him more about this. There's really not that much you can realistically do to hide it. And let's be honest, if it wasn't for companies like ExxonMobil, Lamar wouldn't be the school it is today.