UNH builds and expands with an eye on D- I upgrade
The Peterson Performance Center will be the 30,000- plus squarefoot centerpiece to the future of athletics at the University of New Haven, which isn’t married to the idea of upgrading from Division II to Division I but is operating in ways to prepare for the opportunity.
“The best metaphor I could give you as an old English journalism major is we need to put on our best dress and our best suit and get asked to the dance,” athletic director Sheahon Zenger said.
With the costs and benefits of college athletics under a microscope now more so than ever — at a time, even, when 45 miles north the University of Hartford is citing financial pitfalls while considering a downgrade from Division I to Division III — New Haven is moving forward with aggressive fundraising and construction.
The three- story Peterson Center ( cost: $ 8- 10 million) will house football training areas, locker rooms and meeting rooms and more, improving the quality of the student- athlete experience and representing a major step toward UNH becoming a viable option for Division I conferences seeking members in the future.
“I just know that the University of New Haven, from the day I was recruited here and agreed to come, it was under the auspices of moving to Division I, FCS,” said Zenger, hired in September 2019. “It’s very doable. Under President [ Steven] Kaplan’s leadership the past 17 years you’ve seen the growth. This place has just exploded — academically, residential life, community outreach, donor outreach. This is the last piece.”
The Chargers, if such a move came to fruition, would play Division I sports across the board, with its football program competing at the Football Championship Subdivision ( FCS), a step below the Football Bowl Subdivision ( FBS).
“Where we’re at right now as we build, it’s all about the studentathletes, the coaches and the true UNH alumni,” Zenger said. “There’s sort of a sweetness to that. New Haven athletics has a solid foundation for the conference we’re in and the level we play across all sports, our playing fields, etc. But we haven’t built a new building for decades.”
Zenger has. As athletic director at Kansas in 2011- 18, and to a lesser extent as AD at Illinois State in 2005- 10, he has been involved in the construction and/ or renovation of over a dozen major facilities projects.
New Haven, a member of the Northeast- 10 Conference, is a successful Division II program with 17 sports ( soon 18, with the addition of rugby).
The athletic department has reinvented itself after a university financial crisis led to the cancellation of the football program following the 2003 season. The Chargers re- established football in 2009 and won three NE- 10 championships ( with two NCAA playoff appearances) under Pete Rossomando, and made another NCAA appearance in 2018 under current coach Chris Pincince.
Along the way, fundraising and ambition has been on the rise. If a Division I move is made, New Haven would ideally land in a conference that sponsors FCS football to have all its programs under the same umbrella. ( The Northeast Conference offers football, for instance, while the America East does not.)
The Chargers are positioning themselves. The Peterson Center will change almost everything, operationally, in that the football offices will move out of Charger Gymnasium, where locker rooms are shared by many teams. The new facility will benefit numerous programs, as will vacated space that the university plans to renovate.
Moving to Division I would come at a cost. There would likely be an NE- 10 exit fee, an entry fee to a new conference, as well as many structural and staffing costs. New hires would have to be made for bigger coaching and support staffs. And facilities, starting with Charger Gymnasium, would need significant upgrades that would require more aggressive fundraising. While the signature blue field at football’s DellaCamera Stadium is brand new, installed in the summer of 2020, many amenities, including additional seating, would likely need to be added.
And for every group in support of bold athletic endeavors, there is usually a group on campus worried about an academic mission being compromised by overspending.
“When you’re talking about a mid- sized private school, a lot of students who come here come to be involved in something else, athletics, band,” Zenger said. “Students don’t show up to just study, and that’s been going on since Harvard in 1636. UNH had record enrollment last year, and part of that was athletics added 100- plus studentathletes. By bringing in over 100 student- athletes this past fall, that added money to a university budget, that pays a lot of salaries. We didn’t add any athletic staff. So the equation, if done correctly, we can help those individuals.”
Zenger, whose parents were farmers before they were professors, was raised in Hays, Kansas, population of about 20,000 and once the home of Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok and George Custer. He made his mark on major college athletics 230 miles east in Lawrence, running the Kansas athletic department during the most turbulent times of conference realignment and the university’s own investment in athletics.
The annual budget at Kansas was in the $ 90 million range. It’s about $ 6 million at New Haven. Zenger moved to Branford when he took the job but closed on a home in West Haven in April. He loves Greater New Haven, the fast pace of the Northeast in general and the more intimate feel of the position he holds in phase two of his career.
“I’m much more about being an educator today,” Zenger said. “I enjoy living a block from the beach. I enjoy the people here. This isn’t about an AD whose all shot in the rear to go D- I and build his career. No, this is about the right thing for the University of New Haven and we’ll go about it methodically. If that means it takes longer, so be it.”