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Strollo: YSU upgrades needed, coming
By Joe Scalzo
AUSTINTOWN
On the final weekend of last year’s football season, Youngstown State athletic director Ron Strollo discovered his school wasn’t ready for the FCS playoffs.
And he’s not talking about the team.
Had the Penguins defeated South Dakota State to earn a postseason berth, they would have been forced to kick off their first-round playoff game at noon due to insufficient lighting at Stambaugh Stadium.
“We wanted a 5 o’clock kickoff under the lights, but we found out on the Friday before [the South Dakota State] game that we’d have had to kick that game at noon,” Strollo said during Monday’s Curbstone Coaches luncheon at Lucianno’s Banquet Center. “The problem with that is, Ohio State and Michigan played at noon [that day], which would have seriously affected our gate.
“So hopefully we’re going to be able to get that changed before next season.”
Strollo said Stambaugh Stadium currently has between 40 and 45 foot-candles, which refers to the units that measure the intensity of the light falling on the field. The NCAA recommends 75 foot-candles for regional broadcasts, 100 for national broadcasts and 125 for championship broadcasts.
“We need to get to 100 [foot-candles],” Strollo said. “If you come to our games, we’re hopefully going to double the brightness before next season.”
Also, with the Missouri Valley Football Conference adding instant replay this season, Strollo said YSU will need to upgrade the stadium’s tiny east-side press box.
After a busy 2013-14 school year that saw YSU add a softball stadium and a combined soccer/track complex, the university spent this summer upgrading the Beeghly Center lobby.
“If you’ve been through [the Beeghly Center lobby], you know it needed a lot of attention,” Strollo said. “We were starting to strategically move garbage cans to cover holes so no one fell through them. All that’s been renovated and you won’t even recognize it.”
YSU also resurfaced five of the 10 outdoor tennis courts next to Beeghly Center. That upgrade came after the Penguins’ women’s tennis team won their first Horizon League title last season, advancing to the NCAA tournament.
“My dream some day is for that area [the tennis courts] to be a parking lot and for us to move those tennis courts and maybe even get them indoors,” said Strollo, whose team often plays matches at the indoor Boardman Tennis Center. “It really doesn’t start getting nice enough to go outside and play tennis until, quite frankly, our tennis season is over.”
Strollo said YSU also upgraded the Stambaugh Stadium weight room and added a hydrotherapy pool that can fit 15 football players (or 20 soccer players) at one time.
YSU is coming off its most successful school year since joining the Horizon League in 2001. The Penguins won a school-best six league championships and “had a wonderful year academically,” Strollo said. “It was far and away the best we’ve ever had.”
YSU has also increased its season ticket base for football each of the last five years, Strollo said.
After his speech, the Curbstone Coaches presented Strollo with a check for $2,000 for YSU’s athletic scholarship fund.
“During these times when enrollment has been dropping on campus — and some of that has been strategic — it’s created a lot of financial strain and when you get in those financial strains … you start to trying to figure out, ‘Hey, is this [athletics] worth putting money into?’” Strollo said. “Clearly this community, including yourself, feels like athletics at Youngstown State are important. The community keeps stepping up and I can’t thank you enough.”