SVSU NEWS BRIEF
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SPORTS ROUNDUP
Cardinals play on national television When the Saginaw Valley State University football team opened its 2011 season Sept. 10, fans took note of a number of changes to Harvey Randall Wickes Memorial Stadium. SVSU upgraded its football facility by replacing the grass with a modern synthetic playing surface, added lights for night games, and installed a new scoreboard in the south end zone. The Cardinals are playing all five home games under the lights, with kickoffs moving from the traditional noon starting time to 7 p.m. (Oct. 20 is at 8 p.m.) The addition of the new surface and lights led to an opportunity to have the Oct. 20 home contest against Ashland University carried on national television. CBS Sports Network and the NCAA are partnering to air six NCAA Division II
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football games on regional and local networks and simulcast live on NCAA. com. The game will be available to more than 95 million U.S. households through a variety of cable and satellite providers. This marks the first appearance by the Cardinals and Eagles on national television; the agreement to broadcast NCAA II football is in its sixth year. The Detroit Lions organization had the stadium’s previous grass surface installed in 1998 during a time when the NFL franchise was holding its training camp at SVSU. Only two other schools in the 14-member Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in which SVSU competes have natural grass football fields. The expected useful life of a synthetic surface is 14 years, nearly double what can be expected of a grass
surface, and maintenance and upkeep costs for an artificial surface are much less than with a natural grass field. Harvey Randall Wickes was founder and president of Wickes Corporation from 1941 to 1964. The Harvey Randall Wickes Foundation assisted with many projects at the university, including a $1 million contribution toward the original purchase of land. The previous major renovations to Wickes Memorial Stadium occurred in 1989 when the former 2,400-seat Cardinal Stadium was upgraded to 4,028 seats and named for the Saginaw industrialist during a September 1991 dedication ceremony; in 2005, an earthen berm was added in the north endzone to configure the stadium’s current horseshoe shape and brought total seating capacity to 6,800.