It’s one thing for Northwestern to gush over Ryan Fieldhouse, the school’s new 96,135-square-foot practice facility that features skyline views just feet from the lake.
It’s another when an objective outside voice does it.
Guided by Wildcats football coach Pat Fitzgerald, Pete Thamel, national college football and NFL writer for Yahoo, recently took a guided tour of the fieldhouse and other facilities that make up the $270 million sports complex.
To say Thamel was impressed would be an understatement.
“When the Wildcats move in next month,” Thamel wrote, “they’ll have the nicest athletic facility in all of college football.
“I’ve been in virtually every football building of note in America, witnessing all the Ferrari leather, barber chairs and nap rooms from Clemson to Eugene to Tuscaloosa. In terms of size, spectacle and spending, Northwestern has sprinted past the biggest names in the facilities arms race.”
If that wasn’t enough, Thamel name-checked some of the biggest names in the game and said they should be jealous of Fitzgerald and Co.
“Phil Knight should stare with envy.” he wrote. “Nick Saban should hop his private jet to take notes. Dabo Swinney should start another round of fundraising, as Clemson’s ode to extravagance — replete with a slide, mini-golf course and bowling lanes — cost more than $200 million less. Oregon’s football palace — considered the gold standard until Northwestern — cost just $86 million, or $186 million below Northwestern’s multi-sport palace. The only thing comparable in the football world is the billion-dollar facility that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones built in Frisco, Texas. And while they’re difficult to compare, Northwestern’s beach-front location trumps the aesthetics of Jones’ landlocked strip malls for me.”
