They say you should strike while the iron's hot, and that thing is sizzling right now for Florida State. The 'Noles are back-to-back ACC champions, the reigning national champions, return a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, and are the odds-on favorites to do it all again in 2014.
On Wednesday, Florida State announced the Champions Campaign, a $250 million fundraising effort to upgrade the entire athletics department's facilities, scholarship endowments, and bottom line.
"The Champions Campaign, a $250 million campaign for Athletics, will take FSU’s facilities, scholarships and the operating budget to a higher level in all sports," the announcement reads. "The enhancements will include those facilities where the Seminoles live, work, study and play. The facilities will help our current student-athletes achieve their goals, attract prospective student-athletes and improve the game day experience for Seminole fans."
Florida State has built a new website explaining the Doak Campbell Stadium-sized goal of the project: built the athletics department's endowment to $190 million, which would then fully fund Florida State's $9.5 million annual scholarship commitment, increase enrollment in FSU's booster club, sell seats in Doak Campbell's premium Champions Club seating, build Florida State's state-of-the-art Champions Hall dorm facility, and help pay for the recently-completed indoor practice facility.
Florida State (quite literally) already has the infrastructure in place to build a championship-winning football program, but completing this latest fundraising drive would put the 'Noles in the want-for-absolutely-nothing stratosphere alongside Oregon and Alabama.
All it takes is a quarter of a billion dollars to get there.
Back in May, while we were touring Hollman's factory (the good people behind the new look), several Florida State staff members were there finalizing the design you see below. At that time they were confident this would be one of the best locker rooms in the country, and after seeing the finished concepts it would be hard to disagree. This is outstanding work.
