“Patty Graves can’t believe the day has come, the day when her persistence finally went beyond think tanks, board meetings and field trips and turned into a 20-foot deep hole on the University of Akron’s campus. University President Luis Proenza mentioned Graves during his speech Friday on the site of UA’s new football stadium during the official ground breaking ceremony, when university officials and other dignitaries, including Mayor Don Plusquellic, turned over dirt on the site.”
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Patty Graves can’t believe the day has come, the day when her persistence finally went beyond think tanks, board meetings and field trips and turned into a 20-foot deep hole on the University of Akron’s campus.

University President Luis Proenza mentioned Graves during his speech Friday on the site of UA’s new football stadium during the official ground breaking ceremony, when university officials and other dignitaries, including Mayor Don Plusquellic, turned over dirt on the site.

Graves was credited throughout the ceremony as someone who spearheaded the project during her nine-year tenure on the board of trustees and as the board’s chairwoman in the 2003-2004 school year.

In July of ’03, as the chairwoman, Graves, was fed up with the stadium plans being solely in the discussion phase.

Everyone agreed that yes we needed to do something, but that wasn’t making anything better, Graves said

She commissioned a trip for the board of trustees to tour the Rubber Bowl in its entirety, to see first-hand the state of the Rubber Bowl. The entire board of trustees was bussed to the site.

Paul Hammonds, UA’s assistant athletic director of facilities, was the tour guide throughout the trip. They started at the bottom and worked their way throughout the stadium.

We got to a point and they said, ‘we get it,’ Hammonds said. And I said ‘we’re not done yet.’

What the board saw was a crumbling stadium with a bad location and poor parking. Proenza said they also found out, through a study that it would cost about the same to build a new stadium than it was to make all the necessary repairs to revitalize the Rubber Bowl.

Basically, it was (the tour) and the planning enabled her to say to her colleagues we just have to retire the Rubber Bowl and build a new stadium, Proenza said. That was the formal point at which the board knew that we had to do something and they commissioned the staff to develop a plan.

The plan was revealed in August and since has created an atmosphere of excitement, enough to have the 17 suites at InfoCision Stadium sold out for its first season.

Friday marked the official groundbreaking ceremony, under tents outside what will be the north endzone on Vine St., even though construction has been underway since February.

Also turning the historic dirt, were Plusquellic, Proenza, UA vice president of capital planning and facility management Ted Curtis and J.D. Brookhart among others.

Afterwards, the dignitaries went inside the Luis and Freda Stiles Athletic Field House to enjoy the day, while Brookhart plugged season ticket options for next year and the following season, which is expected to be played inside the new stadium.

And Graves, though no longer with UA? was at the ceremony, and is excited to be a part of the excitement she helped create.

Dr. Proenza said (I) started this, Graves said. I guess it was just my persistence. I just kept bringing it up, and bringing it up and wore them down.

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” #1.1361101:2050362760.jpg:20080408_groundbreaking_cb.jpg:In a ground breaking ceremony on Friday, UA faculty and Akron community members turned out to officially initiate construction of InfoCision Stadium. Zippy helped too.:Christopher Bair”