The Gophers play football at the Metrodome, which is less than three football field-lengths from campus. The Minnesota Student Association, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the University’s Alumni Association’s national board think building a stadium “on campus,” presumably in the parking lot near Williams Arena, would help “school spirit” and kindle institutional enthusiasm. There is no magic in such a minor change of game location, and the cost will be stupendous.
Despite its considerable membership, the Alumni Association represents a tiny minority of those who have graduated from the University. Judging from the number of votes cast in MSA elections each year, those people speak for an even smaller number of current students. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly is not much better.
Why doesn’t the University take that stadium money and use it to give full scholarships to deserving Medical School students, some of whom might stay in this benighted state to heal people?
The Metrodome is as near to campus as possible without being on campus, and it infuriates me that magical thinking can direct hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve nothing.
How to build spirit for Gopher football? Get winning teams year after year. That always packs them in and fires them up. Where they play means next to nothing.
