MSU's south end zone complex
Photo by: MSU Sports Information
CATS IN CAMP: Day Ten
8/14/2011 8:14:00 PM | Football
Stadium renovation amazes current, former Cats
In a football sense, Casey Dennehy and Alex Terrien have seen some things.
Montana State's senior class, to which offensive linemen Dennehy and Terrien belong, has played games in stadiums of Big 10 (two) and Big 12 (one) opponents. One of those included the Metrodome in Minneapolis, an NFL stadium, and this year's seniors nearly pulled off an upset at Pac 10 foe Washington State last fall.
Dennehy and Terrien and their classmates own a win in every Big Sky venue except Roos Field in Cheney. They each played big roles in MSU's win against Montana in Washington-Grizzly Stadium last fall.
But the two Bobcat veterans have never felt quite what they felt when standing along in Bobcat Stadium after Thursday morning's practice session.
“Amazing,” said Dennehy, describing the summer makeover that has transformed Bobcat Stadium into a 17,200-seat arena, enclosed by a new 7,200-seat complex at the south end and a massive, 39-foot by 36-foot scoreboard that towers over the north end zone. “Awesome,” Terrien added
Erected last Wednesday, the scoreboard caps the major structural work on the Stadium, although a smaller board is to be perched atop the new end zone complex. Considerable infrastructure work also remains beneath the south stands.
The team's first visit to Bobcat Stadium this fall came last Thursday for the team's first major scrimmage of the fall, a practice session timed to coincide with the scoreboard's installation. “The excitement about the new end zone has really been building among the players,” Ash said, “and we wanted it to be a big deal like we did with the (newly-installed) Field Turf a couple years ago. And I think they had a lot of fun with it.”
One of the great players in Bobcat history, Kane Ioane arrived at MSU just two years after the Stadium's previous renovation, but at a time when the football program was at its nadir. The Bobcats finished 0-11 Ioane's freshman season, but even then he heard and saw things that made him believe this moment was on the horizon.
“When I first stepped on campus as 2000, everything we were told as players, everything we worked for, it's starting to come to fruition,” said Ioane, now MSU's linebackers coach. “It's awesome for me to still be be part of the football program and be able to come out here for practice and games and be in this stadium. All the Cats that I played with, it's awesome for them to see it on the internet and see the pictures. As former Cats, starting where we started in 2000 and where we're at now, it's an awesome feeling.”
As a youngster, Ioane came to Bobcat games in old Reno H. Sales Stadium, as the venue was called prior to its 1998 renovation. MSU averaged fewer than 10,000 fans per home game in that decade.
“To be honest, it's light years away from where it was when I was first coming to games when I was a kid,” he said. “Our friends Bruce and Lisa Parker had my family to games, and to me it was a nice stadium, it was bigger than a high school stadium, but that was it. You didn't have the feeling that it was big-time football.”
With the 1998 renovations came improved recruiting, and in 2002 the Bobcats won the program's first Big Sky title in 18 years. The team repeated in 2003, won again in 2005, and claimed its fourth crown of the decade last fall.
And now Ioane stands in the middle of a 17,200-seat arena that vaults MSU to the vanguard of FCS football facilities. As he glances around, the long-time Bobcat sees the difference.
“This is big-time football,” he says. “This is what Montana State should be.”
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