For the chancellor, the project started with a question: How could we use the stadium more? PAGE 4C
More views of KU’s new home. PAGE 6C-7C
Home game dates, seating map and parking information. PAGE 8C
Some of the new features that fans can expect. PAGE 9C
The Jayhawks who helped lay the foundation for KU football. PAGE 10C
t’s not all too often that our wildest dreams and greatest visions come to fruition. People can live their entire lives charting a course toward a lofty goal, imagining the future, executing a plan near seamlessly, and yet many times the outcome doesn’t meet the dream.
So, when you are fortunate enough for a dream to turn to reality, it’s a moment that deserves reflection, appreciation and a little awe.
That’s where I find myself today.
> GOFF, 2C
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photos
THE LIGHTS ILLUMINATE DAVID BOOTH KANSAS MEMORIAL STADIUM ON JULY 28.
Six days from opening the reimagined David
the rabid Jayhawk
who grew up in Dodge
and started his journey as a student at KU is having a hard time wrapping his head around this dream that is now reality.
WE did it.
After years of meticulous planning, nonstop meetings and incredible teamwork, WE have tackled a decadeslong challenge and converted it into one of our greatest opportunities.
In less than a week, WE will celebrate the transformation of the NEW David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and welcome in a community that has been with us every step of the way.
Our dream wasn’t simply to build a football stadium, although our
The new Booth is for all of us.”
collective commitment to Kansas Football and what Coach Leipold and his young men have achieved has certainly been at the forefront of it. Our dream transcends the gridiron and, with the help of this amazing community, WE have defined what a multi-use stadium, expansive conference center and, eventually, an economic-driving mixed-use development could be.
While the full vision has not yet been reached, our collective will and aligned partnership ensures it will be. Frankly, we’ve tackled the hardest part. We’ve gone from renderings to reality. We’ve gone from “What if?” to “Is it possible” to “Only a matter of time.”
Saturday, when you walk through the gates for the first time, I ask that you do the same thing I’ll do — take a minute and soak it all in. The moment belongs to our football program and University, sure. But it also belongs to YOU.
The new Booth is for all of us. This remarkable stadium and the development to follow will further connect the powerful relationship between the University of Kansas and the Lawrence community. It will impact the entire state and bring people near and far to Lawrence to experience the place I am so proud to call home.
A breathtaking new venue like this cannot happen without elite alignment and vision at the University of Kansas. We are so thankful for the leadership and commitment of Chancellor Girod to make this a reality for our community. He has truly been a visionary, and he and his team have been exceptional partners.
And, without a shadow of a doubt, our namesake donor and transformative leader and philanthropist, David Booth, has propelled us forward every step of the way. He, alongside many other leadership donors, has fueled the project to this remarkable place. It will drive tourism, local business and economic impact in a way that no other project ever has. In fact, as I write that, it becomes clear “project” is no longer an accurate term for what’s happening here in Lawrence. It’s a transcendent transformation.
We would not be here if it weren’t for every member of the Lawrence and KU communities. Thank YOU for your hand in bringing this to reality. We have more work to do and more dreams to accomplish. For now, let’s take a deep breath and appreciate what WE have achieved together.
— Kansas Athletic Director T ravis Goff
Journal-World File Photo
ABOVE: KANSAS ATHLETIC DIRECTOR TRAVIS GOFF ADDRESSES MEDIA on a tour of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on April 25, 2025. BELOW: GOFF SPEAKS DURING A BEAM CEREMONY for the stadium on Sept. 19, 2024.
Missy Minear/Kansas Athletics
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo BELOW: A COLLECTION OF IMAGES OF FAMED JAYHAWK PLAYERS AND COACHES decorates a wall on the top tier level of suites at the new David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
PROUD SUPPORTERS OF THE JAYHAWKS AND THE PLACE
CONGRATS, KU, ON YOUR NEW HOME!
As KU kicks off a new chapter with the transformed David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and the Gateway District, we’re celebrating right along with you. Stephens is proud to cheer on the Jayhawks and to help folks put down roots in the neighborhoods that make Lawrence feel like home. From game days to moving days, we’re with you.
John Tacha
Ariela Unz
Mindy Stutler
Kevin Phenix
Laura Polite
Becky Orth
Mark Hummel
Abigail Hummel
Ahnya Lewis
Zach Dodson David Dunn Robyn Elder Cheri Ezell Shelley Ezell Regan Flood
Lee Beth Dever
Kylie Dister
Chad Frickey Danny Freeman
Libby Grady Austin Hamill Tom Harper
Scot Hoffman Monica Heidewald
Rob Coleman
Lauren Ballard Jill Ballew JIll Batterman Diane Becker Jan Brighton
Anne Warkentine Justin Wilk Amy Wilson Stephanie Standing
Katie Stutler
Michelle Roberts-Freeman Randy Russell
Joan Stone
Ida Lewis Jan Miller
Heidi Minnis
Ken Morris
Erin Nix
A couple of weeks before Girod’s July 2017 start date, the athletic director at the time announced that plans for a $300 million football stadium renovation would soon be released. A $50 million gift from KU alumnus David Booth would soon follow to prime the pump.
In short, the excitement of a new football stadium was in the air. What landed on the chancellor’s desk, however, was a different matter. It was that old chicken or the egg question.
“You know, when I started, we didn’t have the indoor facility, we hadn’t redone the practice facility,” Girod remembered in a recent interview with the Journal-World. “We weren’t even ready for a stadium, quite honestly. We needed those things in place before we could even think about a stadium, because you had to be able to have a team, too.”
In other words, a $300 million chicken or the egg question: Does the stadium come first or the team?
Ultimately, the team did. After a couple of coaching changes, a couple of athletic director changes, a new indoor practice facility, locker room upgrades, and revamped recruiting, KU now finds itself with a team that has been to a bowl game two out of the last three years.
Today — eight years after that 2017 announcement — KU has the stadium too. A $448 million renovation of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium is largely complete, and will be on full display for KU’s first game of the season, Aug. 23 against Fresno State.
Girod is betting the sight will put to rest the age-old question: Forget the chicken. Forget the egg. Step up to the buffet.
“I think they are going to be blown away from the moment they walk up to
The amenities are better than Arrowhead. I mean it. I’m not kidding.”
— Chancellor Douglas Girod
the site because there is not a piece that hasn’t been touched,” Girod said of fans and the upcoming day. “We went from three elevators — one that was broken all the time — to 14 elevators and two escalators.”
“The amenities are better than Arrowhead,” Girod said, comparing it to Kansas City’s NFL stadium. “I mean it. I’m not kidding.”
More days, more ways
Come to find out, there was something else besides wins that Girod needed to become fully comfortable with before moving ahead on the stadium project. He never doubted the need for an improved stadium. The need for an upgrade has been clear and “probably needed to be done 30 years ago, quite honestly,” he said.
No, the question that was gnawing at his gut was how do you spend this much money on a facility that maybe will only be in use for eight or nine major events per year?
He and other KU leaders ended up answering that question with a question.
“Rather than using it eight or nine days a year, why not use it 200 days a year to also support a conference center?” Girod asked.
The State of Kansas said yes, and in a loud way. The state provided $85 million in funds through both economic development money and infrastructure grants that came to the state during the pandemic recovery programs. That $85 million was never part of the equation when KU was thinking of doing only a football stadium renovation. The state money has allowed the completed project
to become much more. The north end of the stadium has a conference center built into it. The center includes a 1,000-seat banquet room that will be the largest in the city when it opens later this year.
The conference center and stadium space share many synergies, which Girod said was one of the lightbulb moments that caused him and other KU leaders to believe they could do something bigger than a traditional stadium remodel.
For example, a stadium already requires a large amount of kitchen space to meet the concessionaire needs of game day. Now, the kitchen space can also be used to serve meals to convention-goers. Another synergy: Across the hall from the banquet room is a luxury seating area that looks over the north end zone of the field. On nongame days, that luxury area can be used as a gathering area for convention attendees to mingle, network, and share a drink before they step across the hall to attend their meetings.
Plus, there are more mundane matters: One parking lot will be able to serve two uses. The same goes for the elevators, the restrooms, and a whole host of other infrastructure. It all adds up to an equation that means the stadium will be used more days and more ways.
Girod said he is intent on seeing that happen. The university has selected the Oak View Group, one of the largest operators of convention centers in the country, to manage the operations of the stadium and the conference center.
Additionally, KU has made an important change in how it oversees the stadium. In the past, Kansas Athletics generally had the final word on any matter involving the stadium. Now, the chancellor’s office has assumed oversight of the stadium, and Girod said he’s sent the message his office is going to put it to use. The athletic department has bought into the idea in a big way, and will be a great partner, Girod said.
“I know another institution where their AD and coaches won’t allow the university to use their spaces for anything else, and they have turned away some pretty big opportunities,” Girod said. “This is a partnership. You can’t be in that position. We all need to share what we have.”
On more than a hundred nights per year, what KU is likely to have is a convention or a conference of some sort. The second phase of the Gateway project will include a hotel connected to the conference center, a thousand spaces of underground parking, restaurants, student housing, a few private condos and other amenities. Those additional components will bring the total price tag of the Gateway project to about $750 million, with a private development group and state and local tax incentives serving as major funding sources for the additional development.
The Oak View Group will use those new amenities to attract conventions and conferences to the site, but Girod is also betting there is one more synergy that will help the project. Perhaps the ultimate synergy in this project is that KU faculty members and staff belong to an almost endless number of associations. As a professor and an expert in a field, you often belong to multiple associations in that field of study. Almost all of those
associations have an annual conference, and Girod thinks KU will end up hosting its fair share once it has the facilities to do so.
But if, for example, the annual blowout for the American Anthropological Association doesn’t necessarily excite you, Girod said KU is thinking much broader about events that the entire stadium can host. He said concerts are very much in the game plan for the revamped stadium.
“Lawrence is a great music town and incredible arts scene,” Girod said. “Plus, when acts are moving from the East Coast to the West Coast, we are a good stop. It might be a Thursday night instead of a Saturday, but that will be OK.”
The big view Girod has toured the stadium site many times as it has been in various stages of construction, and usually finds something that excites him. Recently, it was a perch atop that new conference center.
“The best view of Kansas might be standing at the top of the north end zone,” Girod said. “It will pop your eyes. It really will.”
It may be appropriate that Girod has spotted that view because he’s been the person who has most frequently said you have to view this project broadly to fully understand what it can offer.
It is about far more than football, he says.
First, there is student recruitment. There is a reason university leaders have dubbed the project the Gateway district. They intend for nearly every potential student and their family to come through the district as they start their tour of campus. The relatively new, multimillion-dollar Jayhawk Welcome Center is also on the northern end of campus, making the stadium basically within eyesight of the welcome center.
When the east side renovations are completed — KU leaders are roughly projecting in the next two to three years — the project will include a new plaza area that Girod thinks can become a campus quad for a university that doesn’t really have one. Plus, there will be restaurants, new student housing and the promise of fun and excitement that can occur at the site.
All that is important, he said, if you want to attract students during a time period when competition for students has become more intense as the sizes of graduating high school classes have fallen significantly.
“We are in the experience business, if you think about it,” Girod said of the university. “It is your educational experience, but also your campus life experience.”
He noted the schools in the Southeastern Conference — the powerhouse football conference — are becoming very good at using campus experiences to recruit new students. As the competition for students gets stiffer, the wow factor needs to get bigger.
Then, there is the view of what this project can do for Lawrence. Girod is hoping that community members are starting to get an idea of how big of a boost this can be to the Lawrence economy. When phase II is complete, the total amount of money invested at the site will be about $750 million.
“I hope the community, at the end of the day, will appreciate that this has been the biggest investment in this community in modern history,” he said. “We are pushing a $750 million investment that will benefit every element of this community in one way, shape or form.”
Of that money, Girod noted about $350 million of it is coming from KU donors “who are mostly not in Lawrence.”
BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON THE HILL.
With the transformation of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and the new KU Gateway District, this is one of the most exciting times in KU history. It’s not just about football—it’s about bringing fans, families, and the community together in a whole new way.
We’re proud to be part of that hometown spirit. And we’re proud to support Crimson and Blue fans from far and wide. We’ve got you covered. Home, auto, business, liability—whatever your insurance needs. We’re the local pros who can help.
Take a look around KU’s new home
Photos by Nick Krug
Take a look around KU’s new home
Photos by Nick Krug
Game day information
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That said, it is also true part of that investment is scheduled to come from local governments that will forgo collecting some of the new tax revenue that the new development is projected to produce.
The project plans to use special STAR bond financing for its second phase, which means much of the new sales taxes generated on the site and surrounding campus will be used to pay for the infrastructure of the project, such as the 1,000 underground parking spaces.
The community, however, will get something that has long been discussed — a convention center — and won’t have to take the traditional risk that usually comes with those projects. The most typical operating model for a convention center in a community — especially the size of Lawrence — is that the city government ultimately owns it and agrees to cover any operating shortfalls the facility experiences.
City government is not being asked to take that risk in this project. Rather, KU will be the entity that has to cover any losses if the convention center doesn’t perform as expected. Girod acknowledged KU is prepared to play that role.
“That’s really true, and we took a big gulp and took a lot of very deep breaths,” Girod said of the decision making process about whether KU really wanted to enter into a project that is so different from what a university normally does. “But it is just the right thing to do.”
The State of Kansas also has made it an easier thing to do. When the project is complete, Lawrence likely will have the most unique convention center in Kansas because state government will have been such a major funder of the project. Through the STAR bond financing plan, about $40 million that otherwise would have gone into the state’s coffers will go toward the project. That’s in addition to the $85 million of grant funds the state already has contributed to the first phase.
Girod’s convinced that Lawrence will broadly benefit from the project as more people come to the community, more people shop, and more people make their way to the downtown area, which Girod said must have an improved connection to the 11th and Mississippi area where the stadium sits.
“We know one of the reasons they will come is downtown,” Girod said. “That is one of the selling points of doing a conference in Lawrence.”
But Girod is also excited about attracting people to the community who know nothing about Lawrence. Even more so, he’s excited about attracting people who know nothing about Kansas — or perhaps more accurately, attracting people who think they know something about Kansas but really don’t.
Girod remembers back to 1994 when he, his wife and family were in California. Girod was one of the country’s top head and neck surgeons, and had been approached about a job at the KU Medical Center. He remembers telling his wife that he was interested in exploring a job opportunity in Kansas City, Kan.
“She said: ‘Get out the map,’” Girod recalled.
The Girods were once a family that thought they knew something about Kansas, only to get a pleasant surprise once they arrived.
“If you can get people here, they have a completely different perception,” Girod said.
Girod said he thinks Lawrence can be a fantastic front door for the state. KU is betting
the Lawrence community is ready to embrace that role, although Girod acknowledged that there could be hesitation among some community members. Girod said he’s come to believe that Lawrence is one of the “best kept secrets” of Kansas and the broader region.
“Some people want to keep it that way, and some people want to share it,” Girod said.
Just one step Make no mistake, KU is in full-scale share mode. It is really the promise KU made to the state when it accepted the tens of millions in state funding and support. Girod said the project won state support because the project was presented as a “huge economic development play” for the state.
Delivering on that concept is critical for multiple reasons, including for keeping peace in the state. Travel to Manhattan, and you already can hear grumblings in the fan base of Kansas State University about how KU received tens of millions in state dollars to upgrade its football stadium when Kansas State has improved its stadium on its own.
KU officials, though, have been adamant that the state funding has been for the conference center element, and the economic development dollars and the intangibles it will bring to the state. In other words, it truly is about more than football.
While acknowledging the importance athletics has on KU’s national visibility, Girod said the nonfootball elements of the project are more in line with what got him initially excited about being a higher education leader. It was about a dozen years ago that Girod had to make an important decision about his career path. Was he content to be one of the country’s top surgeons — with a national reputation as an expert in reconstructive surgery following head and neck cancers — or did he want to move into big leadership roles?
He embraced the leadership path, becoming the executive vice chancellor at the KU Medical Center in 2013, and then was named KU’s 18th chancellor four years later. Girod will tell you he didn’t change career paths because he had a burning desire to oversee an athletic program. Rather, getting to lead economic development efforts was a big part of his decision. While serving as the top on-site official for the medical center, Girod served as a co-chair for one of the KC metro area’s largest economic development initiatives, KC Rising. That stint was a formative experience.
“It became clear to me — and it is really one of the reasons I was interested in this job — that KU could be probably one of the biggest drivers in the region for growth,” Girod said. “If we partner well with our state and our communities and our industries, together we can make things happen that none of us are going to do individually.” The Gateway project is an example of that philosophy, Girod said, but it is not a completion of the vision. Girod said success of the Gateway project in the next five to 10 years will mean a bustling conference center that is operating at full capacity, meaning that visitor dollars are being spent throughout the Lawrence community.
“But actually, the element of success will be what happens after this,” Girod said. “What happens after this because we did this? What are the next things that are going to come? You can make some guesses, but they are guesses. But you hope that this is just one step to kind of rejuvenate the economy of Lawrence and one that will create a whole ladder of things to follow.”
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
By Henry Greenstein l l l hgreenstein@ljworld.com
PICTURED TOP TO BOTTOM: Hayden Hatcher, Sam Burt, Mason Fairchild.
These Jayhawks laid KU football’s foundation
By Henry Greenstein l hgreenstein@ljworld.com
Asked to consider the longterm impact of his time with the Kansas football program, Rich Miller admits he thinks about certain things differently now that he’s become a father.
“It kind of changed my perspective on laying foundations,” Miller told the JournalWorld in a recent interview.
Raising a baby is a new experience for him, but building something from the ground up is much more familiar.
As a linebacker for KU beginning in 2021, Miller played a key role in the program rebuild under Lance Leipold. He helped the Jayhawks generate the momentum that in turn fueled the creation of the revamped David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
As teammate Mason Fairchild puts it, if they don’t demonstrate the program’s progress in concrete ways, like if they don’t make the
2022 Liberty Bowl or win the 2023 Guaranteed Rate Bowl, “Maybe that stadium doesn’t get built.”
Now working as a real estate agent in Florida, Miller acknowledges he would have loved to play in the new Booth, but it’s almost more meaningful to know how he and his teammates contributed to its creation.
“I know it was going to be electric, but it’s also been great to know that not just me but the teams I played on had a lot to do with it, and our success,” he said. “We laid the foundation — we laid bricks for future generations to come.”
Leipold arrived late in the spring of 2021, bringing along a handful of key transfers like Miller from his former school, Buffalo, who served as early leaders on his first few teams.
Hayden Hatcher predated all that. Originally from
Council Bluffs, Iowa, and possessing just a lone Division II football offer out of high school, he played one year at junior college and then two years under Les Miles before Leipold’s arrival.
When he thinks about the new stadium, he thinks about all the fans he’s met who have been season ticket holders since before he was born. He also thinks about the ones who showed up for a particular game in 2019 in which KU hosted Baylor.
“I don’t even know, I don’t even want to guess what we were losing by, but people were still at the games,” he recalled. “There wasn’t a lot of people. I think of those people.”
The final score that day was 61-6.
“I always felt like we were in many ways a really gritty, resilient team even before Leipold got there,” said defensive tackle Sam Burt, who spent two years under David Beaty, two with Miles and two with Leipold. “You just had a lot of guys who were there kind of on their last chance and were trying to make it any way they can, we just didn’t really have the coaching to pull it off.”
After a memorable victory at Texas and stronger performances late in 2021, the results started to show in earnest in 2022, when KU started unbeaten and hosted ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
Phase two, on which KU officials have said the university could potentially begin construction following the 2025 season, will concentrate on the east end and associated retail, lodging and housing developments. Available for fans to
experience on Aug. 23, when the venue officially reopens to host the Kansas football season opener against Fresno State, will be a variety of new amenities in the northern and western portions of the stadium.
The seating, with a new stadium-wide capacity of just over 40,000, is arranged in a design that spells out “Rock Chalk” on the west side and features KU’s “K Flag” in the
north end. All new seats will have chairbacks with an increase in legroom and a slightly closer position to the action than in the previous arrangement. The first row of seats is now elevated higher off the field surface. About 2,300 seats are located in club spaces.
In the concourse, KU is touting a vastly larger array of concession options provided by stadium operator Oak View Group and an increased number
of bathrooms as compared to the previous version of the venue.
The south end of the stadium includes a new video board that at 5,280 square feet is more than twice the size of its predecessor and sits 60 feet closer to the field. (The southern side of the board, which faces the outside of the stadium, may in the future be equipped to play video as well for concerts, movie nights or other non-football events.)
The turf of Kivisto Field, provided by Meriden-based firm MMTH, was installed in mid-July as one of the last major additions to the project. It features a new design with block-letter “Kansas” text in both end zones (white text with red outlines on a blue background with a faint wheat design), “Rock Chalk” and “Jayhawk” on opposite sidelines, the classic 1946 smiling Jayhawk logo at midfield and Big 12 and MMTH logos at each 25yard line. KU’s brand-new conference center, built into the north end of the stadium, is a 55,000-square-foot space with a 15,000-squarefoot main hall, eight meeting rooms and four breakout rooms. It is expected to open in October, as the lone portion of the Gateway project’s first phase that won’t be ready to go for the Aug. 23 kickoff.
Foundation
“The people of Lawrence want, obviously, us to be good and they’re waiting for that team that they can rally behind, and we felt that in 2022,” Burt said. “And we did feel in many ways like the foundational team, baseline team, whatever you want to call it, because we got to a bowl but we didn’t win, but it was the first team to have some major successes along the way (compared to) what had been previously happening.”
By the first weeks of the 2022 campaign, the university had already begun soliciting design proposals for its football stadium and associated development at 11th and Mississippi streets, and then announced plans on Oct. 7, 2022. Then, on Aug. 15, 2023, KU unveiled
in earnest its formal plans for the Gateway project in greater depth. Orange Bowlera alumnus Chris Harris Jr. remarked at the time that he had been excited about pending renovations to the stadium back when he was a freshman, 16 years earlier; this time they would get done for real.
Chancellor Douglas Girod said the university was able to embark on the plans on “a more aggressive time schedule than we could have otherwise” because of the on-field success.
“It was in many ways surprising for me how quickly the athletic department was able to put forth a plan like this to get a stadium renovation and all the other stuff that they are doing for the football team,” Burt said.
The on-field performance delivered another boost of momentum in 2023 with a 9-4 season that featured the first bowl victory in 16 years.
“When you get to KU and a team that’s been struggling for 15-some years, everyone talks about being part of the change and all that stuff,” Fairchild said, “but to actually be a part of the team that really gets it turned around, you can’t even put into words how special that is and that’s something I’ll always look back on fondly.”
Hatcher thinks about his and his teammates’ legacy from that season in the context of what a similar record might have achieved at Iowa or Nebraska.
“If you’re a nine-win team there, you’re just another nine-win team,” he said, “but if you’re at Kansas and you win a bowl game, you just laid the foundation for a whole other series of winning seasons.”
Burt, a native Kansan from Abilene, still lives in Lawrence with his wife Reese, a KU rowing alumna. He said he has had the chance to see the project in various
stages of development.
“Now they have really good facilities that can help them be even better on the stage,” Burt said. “It’s really cool to see the little success that we had in 2022 kind of springboard them into (being) back on the national stage. That’s the expectation now, right?”
As any returning coach or player would tell you, the 2024 season in some ways fell short of expectations. Playing its home games at Children’s Mercy Park and GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium due to the ongoing construction at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, KU opened 1-5 with a series of close losses. The Jayhawks rallied with three straight wins over ranked foes to get themselves a game away from bowl eligibility, but couldn’t get over the hump against Baylor — a team that continues to vex them — in the final week of the season and finished 5-7.
Hatcher and teammate Austin Booker visited for the Houston game in 2024, a victory at Arrowhead that gave KU some life after its rough start. He said it was “one of the first times that I really felt the alumni spirit.”
“I felt like I was still a part of the team in the way, because I was down there (on the field),” he recalled, “but at the same time it was like I kind of get this feeling now of why people still wear the letterman jackets and still come back to the games.”
Miller sometimes wonders what it would be like to play at the new stadium, but said that the legacy he left at KU means more than, as he put it, any tackle, his one career interception or any dropped interception.
“It makes me so proud,” he said. “When I was there (in March) I got a chance to catch up with a few of the guys, Logan Brantley in particular. With him being in the linebacker room with me
— Cole Mondi, I see him doing his thing — it’s guys that I poured into every single day, and to see everything beginning to really come to fruition and see that those seeds that I planted actually have grown and they were actually listening to me, it means the most to me.”
Added Burt, who helped mentor players like Tommy Dunn Jr. and D.J. Withers: “It just makes you feel really encouraged that what you did in some ways had a lasting effect.”
They also have a more palpable reminder every time they come to Lawrence. Miller compared the stadium to a purchase like a new toy, or a new car, or a new phone: “Everybody’s going to walk around with a different swagger.”
“Something brand new like that, everybody’s going to want to be there,” he said. “It’s going to be great for the economy, it’s going to be great for the community.”
