Griz, Cats upgrading facilities

When fans of the Montana State Bobcats and Montana Grizzlies start making their annual pilgrimages from Havre to Bozeman and Missoula for football this fall, they're going to be in for some treats.

Both Bobcat Stadium and Washington-Grizzly Stadium have gotten some nice, and in some ways expensive, upgrades for the upcoming football season.

In Bozeman, Bobcat Stadium installed new FieldTurf recently, upgrading the existing surface that had been in place since the start of the 2008 season. The new surface is the exact same field, minus the color the scheme, that the Grizzlies installed before the start of the 2016 season.

New FieldTurf is the first part of a massive facilities master plan at MSU, one that hasn't been fully revealed yet by new MSU Athletic Director Leon Costello. However, while the full plan hasn't been made public as of yet, rumors have swirled that MSU is expected to unveil plans to rebuild the aging east side of Bobcat Stadium, and then either bowl in the north endzone, or construct a football operations facility in its place. But from the sounds of it, the east side of the stadium is now a top priority, while a football building connected to Bobcat Stadium may come later. MSU's football infrastructure is housed inside Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, including the locker rooms, weight rooms, coaches offices and meeting areas. Costello also noted that an athlete academic center for all of MSU's sports programs is also high on the priority list.

Meanwhile, UM already has an academic center for athletes, something that opened two years ago. And, last year, new Field Turf was installed at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. But, when football players return in August, and, when the calendar turns to October, Montana will already also have its own football operations building.

The ambitious Washington-Grizzly Champions Center is scheduled to be completed, or mostly completed, in time for the start of the 2017 season, while it is set to be dedicated and fully opened for Montana's Oct. 14 Homecoming Game against the University of North Dakota.

The $14 million Champions Center was the dream of the Washington family, who, in 2014, made a $7 million donation to the project. The rest of the money was raised privately, and construction began back in the spring of 2016. The state of the art facility, set to be on par with many at the FBS level, will house the Griz' football team's lockerroom, coaches offices and meeting areas. It will also house perhaps one of the most elite weight room and training centers in all of the Big Sky Conference and the northwest. The new, two-level weight room will be used by all athletes at UM. The facility, which is connected to the south side of Washington Grizzly Stadium, also adds new rest rooms and concession venues to the stadium, and the construction itself helped expand and reconstruct the southwest concourse of the stadium. The flat roof also allows for expansion of the south endzone seating of the stadium.

Like at MSU, UM also has a long-term facilities upgrade plan, one that will begin with the expansion of the Lady Griz softball stadium. Other items on the list are rumored to include an indoor practice facility that would house multiple sports at UM, as well as infrastructure renovations to Dahlberg Arena. The basketball arena is also getting an upgrade with a new floor and a new, modern scoreboard and video board.

But for now, this fall should be an exciting one for Bobcat and Grizzly fans with some bright and shiny additions to two of the gems of the Big Sky Conference.