July 6, 2009

By Josh Katzowitz for www.atlantic10.org

In his old office, Saint Joseph's men's basketball coach Phil Martelli could plop down in the chair behind his desk, stretch back his arms and nearly graze the wall. If he wanted to study game film, he had to watch the television resting on top of the mass-marketed, cheaply-assembled bookcase a scant few feet away from the desk. With two or three long strides, he could touch the opposite wall.

The old office was not what you'd call a palace for a king. It's not even what you'd call sufficient space for a college freshman. But it's what Martelli had. It's what he knew. Yes, as the Hawks were ranked No. 1 in 2004, Martelli was working out of an office that was smaller in dimension than any dorm room on the St. Joe's campus.

But he didn't let the lack of space bother him.

"I wasn't naïve, and I wasn't sitting around saying, `Well, it's not that inadequate, is it?'" Martelli said. "But at no point, did I ever think, `Everybody is playing with 52 cards and I'm playing with 46."

It's because Martelli knows this: the office doesn't prepare the team to play its next game. The tiny locker rooms in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse don't determine whether the Hawks beat those opponents. The amenities are nice, but, in Martelli's mind, they also didn't determine the fate of his program.

These days, though, those bouts of claustrophobia are just memories for Martelli and St. Joe's. On June 26, the school dedicated the Ramsay Center, a two-story, 20,000-square foot addition to the former Memorial Fieldhouse, and these days, Martelli can relax in a 600 square foot office - no longer furnished by IKEA - in which he can stare at the two flat screen TVs worth thousands of dollars.

Martelli and St. Joe's are the latest example of a national trend followed by the Atlantic 10 programs who feel that sprucing up existing arenas or building entirely new ones will continue to allow the conference to remain in the national college basketball spotlight.

Among the numerous facility upgrades this decade around the A-10 include Xavier opening Cintas Center; Rhode Island moved into the $54 million Ryan Center; Saint Louis began play in the brand-new 10,600-seat Chaifetz Arena; Dayton completed a $13.1 million renovation at raucous UD Arena and opened a new athletic practice facility; Duquesne completed a $2 million renovation to the A.J. Palumbo Center, Richmond refurbished its court and added a new scoreboard and sound system; St. Bonaventure upgraded the Reilly Center; and George Washington's Charles E. Smith Center is undergoing a major three-year transformation scheduled for completion in the 2010--'11 season. Renovation plans include a new academic center for student athletes, vastly improved sports medicine and strength training facilities, new men's and women's basketball and additional team locker rooms. Other components include an enhanced arena with new flooring, lighting, increased premium and box seating, as well as a new Athletic Director's Club and Colonials Club.

The conference's schools, simply put, don't have much choice. They need to help keep the league healthy and strong.

"It's very important," said Byron Larkin, Xavier's all-time leading scorer who's been the team's radio analyst the past 12 years. "I've been amazed at what St. Joe's has been able to do (in spite) of the old facility. But you need to have the facilities for the vitality of the league and to keep the league moving in the right direction. The A-10 is continuing to get better quality coaches who are up-and-comers. This is the kind of place where they can thrive and keep getting better."

In order to continue improving, though, the coaches need to bring in top recruits. Which, in the mind of national reporter Gary Parrish, is the single-biggest reason for a program to upgrade its facilities. If the recruits care about shiny new items, Parrish said, the schools better be prepared to act.

"You have to do it," said Parrish, the national college basketball writer for CBSSports.com. "The root of college basketball is recruiting. If you can't get players, you can't compete. If the guy down the street has a nice car, you need one too."

Parrish remembers talking to UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland after the Bruins built their new practice facility. Parrish asked Howland if he needed it. No, Howland said, UCLA could practice in Pauley Pavilion whenever the team wanted. Why build it then, Parrish asked?

"Because," Howland said, "USC had a new one, and I need to be able to say to recruits, `Look at mine.'"

"What you need to be able to sell is that we're doing something new," Parrish said. "Locker rooms are really important. The gathering rooms are really important where they have a big screen and a Wii and a pool table. These recruits are on campus one or two times and that's the impression they're left with. These 48 hours they're in town, kids remember how awesome the Wii is."

Martelli can see Parrish's point. Doesn't mean he necessarily agrees with it all.

"Most coaches absolutely see it that way," Martelli said. "But I happen to be in the minority. I think the facility upgrades are important to the guys that you have. What you want to do is make a statement that we're pursuing excellence. If your current players become your very best recruiters, then you have a terrific program. It's a mistake to think that it's just about recruiting. One thing I fear when you just go over the top with what you can show them, there becomes a sense of entitlement. A kid visits school A and then goes to school B, and maybe school B doesn't have the same kinds of things the kid thinks he's entitled to. Or he makes a decision based on probably immature values."

When Greg Amodio took the Duquesne athletic director job in 2005, the school already had discussed major plans to renovate the Palumbo Center. The upgrades were badly needed. Pockets of athletic department offices were scattered around campus, and the department was logistically inefficient. But after spending $2 million for some rearranging - as well as adding new conference rooms, a new strength and conditioning room and a resurrected Hall of Fame - Amodio thinks the money was well spent.

"It's the images of how you want to portray yourself in the business," said Amodio, who has helped raise $900,000 of the estimated $1.5 million it would cost to renovate the men's basketball, women's basketball and volleyball locker rooms at Palumbo. "This is a business, and at the end of the day, you want to look professional. You want to be able, when recruits come on campus, to show that the university is committed to what's going on in athletics. They want to see with their parents that the university is making a commitment." Many of the A-10 schools have made that same commitment. It's what's needed to keep the conference in the limelight.

"To each school's credit, in their own way, they looked at their infrastructure," Martelli said. "They realize what's at stake. Men's basketball, it has become an arms race. It `costs' to be a vibrant member of Division I. ... You know what? You can't talk about championships and not put your money where your mouth is."