Wizards forward to promote exhibition game - The Daily Oklahoma Stephen Armstrong is going to be at UCO's Wantland Stadium Tuesday, the 23rd (tomorrow) at 3:30pm to promote the exhibition game. It's free to visit.
Don't know what all he's doing, but I imagine it will probably be similar to what happened last year when DJ Countess came.
Got back from this thing. Took some pictures. They had the UCO girls soccer team out there to do a little scrimmage at the end after autographs. Jack Webb, President of UCO, talked briefly about some thing. Aside from making me cringe a little when ever he called it The MLS and making a bit of a gaffe when he said that MLS was the governing body of pro soccer in the US, it was a little informative. He didn't really say much of anything more than we already knew as far as OKC landing a team. He did say that MLS wants to have 18 teams by 2010 and that it was great to be considered as an expansion site. After him, Stephen Armstrong really didn't do anything except answer a few questions that people in the audience had. Amazingly he kept calling is The MLS as well, which was interesting. He answered some questions about the difference between here and Europe, the different styles in play between Europe, Americans and South America. Then he signed some autographs. The biggest bit of news to come out was that UCO students with their student ID can get $5 tickets for the grass berm that surrounds the field on the east and south sides. Below are some of the pics that I took of the event.
Thanks for the photos. I've got a couple of questions for you: 1) How much progress has been made on the stadium renovation and when is it supposed to be complete? 2) Have you heard anything lately on whether any local investors are taking a serious interest in financing an MLS expansion team in OKC?
Answer #1 The nice, big, green field you see in the pictures? And also that scoreboard with the jumbotron? That's the completion of Phase I. Phase II won't begin until UCO knows whether or not there's going to be a MLS team here. I realize that that might seem like a quick construction job but unlike other stadiums that are starting from scratch, the foundation and infrastructure is already in place. All that needs to happen is the construction of east and south stands, rebuilding the west stands and basically (but of course it's more complicated) that's it. No need for any ground breaking, etc. Answer #2 I hear rumors and conjecture all the time. People say it's almost a done deal. How reliable that is? I don't know. My hope is that at the exhibition game there will be good news to announce. Expansion cities have to be announced at some point. One would hope by the time the season starts it will all be resolved. But who knows?
Just so everyone knows, UCO Pres is Roger Webb, not Jack Webb like it says in the pictures. I don' know what I was thinking.