JMUSB Accepts the Challenge
This is better than Robins Stadium.
Many of you might not know who Jim Miller is (I didn’t). He’s the AD for the University of Richmond. The Spiders won the 2008 FCS National Championionship and can count themselves amongst the true elites of FCS football on the field. Notice I said on the field. In the stands, well not so much.
Richmond has called City Stadium its home and the friendly confines have actually been quite friendly to the visiting fans. Whenever the Dukes play at Richmond there is so much purple & gold in the stands you’d swear you were in Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. Albeit a much smaller, quieter version with tailgating that can’t hold a candle to the Cajun delights you get in Baton Rouge. On second thought you’d have to be practically brain-dead to think you were in Tiger Stadium, but there would be a lot of Dukes fans there.
Last season Richmond played in City Stadium for the final time. The school decided to invest in new facilities in an attempt to gain an advantage both in recruiting and on game-days. Of course they took the unorthodox approach of building the 8,700 seat Robins Stadium to replace the 21,319 seat City Stadium. It looks nice. It’s got a brick facade and nice scoreboard and oh yeah, only 8,700 seats! So forgive me if I laugh when in today’s Richmond Times Dispatch Jim Miller says “I challenge anybody to find a better facility for FCS football in the country.”
Well Mr. Miller, JMUSB accepts your challenge. And at the risk of sounding like a total jackass, I’ve got to tell you it’s really not much of a challenge at all. In fact, we’re already done. And sorry, but we didn’t even need to scour the country. We just did a quick scan of teams in Virginia and it turns out that our very own JMU has a facility that is better than Richmond’s. And you know what, it’s going to get even better. Way, way better.
Mr. Miller, I know you were probably eagerly anticipating the coast to coast search your challenge might inspire. Don’t despair though. Just because we found a facility a mere 124 miles from your campus doesn’t mean the challenge needs to end. I’m sure there are plenty of people willing to point out the dozens and dozens of FCS facilities better than Richmond’s.
