LU announces Williams Stadium, Vines Center improvements

When Danny Rocco took over as Liberty University’s head football coach in December 2005, the facilities were threadbare.

The stadium featured rock-hard AstroTurf. The Williams Football Operations Center was still a muddy hole in the ground at the north end of the stadium. An expansion of Williams Stadium? Not necessary for a program that averaged 5,752 fans per game during a dismal 1-10 season.

In less than four years, the atmosphere around the school’s football program has changed completely. The Flames routinely sell out games. The 10 highest-attended games in LU history have occurred during the Rocco era, and four times, the Flames have drawn more than 15,000 fans, well above the stadium’s 12,000-seat official capacity.

The Flames, LU chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. reasoned, had outgrown their modest digs. Friday morning at the school’s convocation service in the Vines Center, Falwell announced plans to expand Williams Stadium to 30,000 seats, and the Vines Center by 3,000 seats, for athletic events.

“I know (the late Rev. Dr. Jerry) Falwell envisioned this,” Rocco said. “When I came down here to meet Dr. Falwell, he was selling me on the vision of athletics and of football. I bought into what he was saying. I really believed this could happen if the right pieces were in place. … To look back at three short years and see how far we have come, it’s very humbling.”

Undoubtedly, the success of the football program in recent seasons was a catalyst for the $22 million stadium project. In each of Rocco’s three seasons at Liberty, the school has reset its season attendance record.

The Flames drew 92,026 fans for seven home dates last season, an average of 13,146 per game. In 2005, Ken Karcher’s final year as LU’s coach, the Flames drew 34,512 for six games. Liberty set a school record with 10 victories last year and won its second straight Big South Conference championship.

With that success has come increased interest, not only from the student body, but the Lynchburg community as a whole. Season tickets sales have increased from 135 in 2005 to roughly 2,500 this season, LU athletics director Jeff Barber said.

The three-phase football stadium expansion will begin later this year, after the Flames’ Nov. 7 home finale against VMI. Already, the school had a new FieldTurf playing surface installed in 2006. That surface was replaced last spring by the manufacturer after some issues arose with the original turf.

Currently, a new scoreboard and high-definition video board is being installed at the north end of the stadium, and it will be ready for use for Liberty’s Sept. 12 home opener against North Carolina Central.

By the start of the 2010 home schedule, Williams Stadium will feature a new three-level, $750,000 building that will span the stadium’s two 10-yard lines. The facility will host the press box, coaches boxes, television booths, permanent suites and a 1,000-person capacity classroom.

The first expansion phase also calls for seating to be installed all the way to the end zones on the lower level, bringing the stadium’s capacity to 19,200.

Phase two will feature an upper deck of seating on the student side of the stands, pushing the capacity to 23,200. The final phase will bring the planned horseshoe stadium to 30,000, as the stands will be expanded all around the south end zone and connect with both sides of current seating. The building at the south end of the stadium, which houses the visitor’s locker room, Liberty’s wrestling practice facility and its track and field locker rooms, will remain underneath the new seating.

Barber, who called the project “a monumental commitment,” said the full expansion should be complete within five years, provided the school succeeds in its ambitious fundraising efforts.

Rosser International, an Atlanta architectural firm that designed the Georgia Dome, North Carolina’s Dean Smith Center and Atlanta’s Turner Field, is in charge of the project.

The only school in the Football Championship Subdivision with a larger on-campus facility is Pennsylvania, which plays at 52,593-seat Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Dick Price Stadium, on Norfolk State’s campus, also seats 30,000.

The stadium expansion would also put Liberty in line with stadium-size regulations to play in the Football Bowl Subdivision, which includes state schools Virginia and Virginia Tech. Barber emphasized, though, that the stadium expansion plans were not made with a jump to the FBS in mind.

“We just want to be the best program in the Big South,” Barber said. “If something changes down the road, I don’t know. But we’re not trying to do this with that in mind. We want to be the best Big South team, the best FCS program. Where it takes us, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The Vines Center expansion is being done with convocation in mind as much as basketball. With nearly 12,000 students on campus, the Vines was filled to capacity Friday. Falwell said some students had to watch the convocation service in another room on campus because there was no more room at the Vines Center.

The Vines currently seats 8,000 for athletics events and will expand to 11,000 with the addition of three upper-deck balconies. For convocation, the capacity will be 12,000.

That project is expected to be complete in the next five to 10 years, and will include a major renovation of the outside of the building. Already inside, the women’s basketball and volleyball locker rooms are undergoing extensive facelifts.

In all, Falwell said, Liberty has spent $70 million in the past two years on campus capital improvements.

“Now,” he said. “We felt like it was time to upgrade our athletics facilities.”

The Vines Center will gain a 3,000-seat balcony (shown in red).

The Vines Center will also have a brick façade and more columns.

Illustrations courtesy of Liberty University