{"id":68,"date":"2011-10-17T07:21:19","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T07:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/sites\/gsm\/?p=68"},"modified":"2014-06-02T14:55:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T18:55:12","slug":"soaring-to-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2011\/10\/17\/soaring-to-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Soaring to Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"soaring\"<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

What do you need to win a conference championship EVERY SINGLE YEAR?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Opportunity is knocking.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot since 1982 and the \u2018Dirty Dozen\u2019 has there been a greater chance to impact Georgia Southern athletics, the University and the community than the $36.6 million Soaring to Victory Capital Campaign,\u201d said John Mulherin, president of the Georgia Southern Athletic Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our generational opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Campaign\u2019s vision is to put student-athletes in position to win conference and national titles and to earn their University degrees. \u201cIt is about rings and diplomas,\u201d Mulherin said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to hire and retain the best possible coaches, we\u2019ve got to attract the best possible athletes, provide facilities and upgrade technology for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the direction of Athletics Director Sam Baker, Mulherin approached every coach and asked, \u201cWhat do you need to win a conference championship every single year?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Campaign provides the means to meet those needs,\u201d said Mulherin.<\/p>\n

Phase I of the Campaign includes a $10 million football operations building \u2013 one that promises to be one of the nation\u2019s best at any level. \u201cThough we have been the standard for others in terms of our on-the-field success, we have continually had to overcome facility issues in competing for prospects and in player development,\u201d said head football coach Jeff Monken. \u201cWe are now at the point where we have fallen behind. The facility will not only create the recruiting advantage that we desire, but will allow us to better train and prepare our team to continue to play championship-level football and position us to be an elite program at this level for decades to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will also give us the necessary facility to be a viable candidate for a move up if repositioning of college football conferences takes place in coming years,\u201d Monken said.<\/p>\n

The building\u2019s impact will ripple far beyond football. \u201cIt will also help other athletic programs at the University by providing better space utilization and training for more than two-thirds of our athletes in other sports,\u201d said University President Brooks Keel.<\/p>\n

Moving football into a new facility frees up the current offices in the Parrish Building to become home for the athletics program, taking it and other sports out of the basement of old Hanner Gym. It frees up the Iron Works weight room and current sports medicine areas for timely and efficient use by other sports.<\/p>\n

Work on the entrance to Hanner Fieldhouse can move forward along with a transformation of the current practice fields into a new lighted track\/soccer stadium and a relocation of the football practice fields to the current track\/soccer facility.<\/p>\n

The Campaign also addresses another major need: coaching continuity. \u201cContinuity wins championships,\u201d said Mulherin. \u201cRight now, if a better-funded program wants to lure Eagle coaches away, the Athletic Foundation is limited in its ability to respond. The Campaign would create a funding source to keep the University competitive year to year with other programs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Campaign goal is simple,\u201d said Baker. \u201cIt is time to transform the face of Georgia Southern athletics for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campaign to \u2018Transform the Face of Georgia Southern Athletics\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-fall-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}