Part Four: The Year of Finance

Introduction   |   Part I: Need   |   Part II: Location   |   Part III: Division   |   Part IV: Finance   |   Part V: Completion   |   Conclusion

For Frericks, the team’s poor performance in late 1967 followed by the Waterman affair complicated his efforts to raise money to build the arena. With the location of the building settled, Frericks’ immediate problem in the fall of 1967 was to find a way to finance its construction. It took from the end of 1967 to late 1968, what we have termed “The Year of Finance,” to get that done. His first efforts involved the invention of a novel way of monetizing attendance that would revolutionize the marketing strategies of both college and professional sports. Ultimately however, in yet another demonstration of historian LaDale Winling’s argument of the symbiotic relationship between the rise of the modern university and public funding, Frericks had to utilize political connections and state level government programs in order secure the money he needed. [84]

“Arena Not Built, But 11,270 Seats Gone Already” Source: Dayton Daily News, January 29, 1969, Frericks Scrapbook, University of Dayton Archives and Special Collections

To help him manage the logistics of the plan and handle seating in the purposed arena Frericks in 1968 he hired Gary McCans who had begun to work for athletics two years before as a student intern. Ironically, it was because of the very problem that Frericks was trying to fix that he owed the good fortune of hiring McCans. As Gary tells the story, his motivation to work for Frericks began as way of getting the hard to come by tickets to UD games. Noticing the lines outside the Fieldhouse he concluded that the best way to get a seat would be to work for those providing them. Little did he know at the time he would spend the next fifty years as UD’s ticket man, which included managing the needs of the Arena Associates.

The arms of each of each Arena Associates’ seat was embossed with their name, “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Frericks” Source: Frericks Family Private Collection.

In mid-1967, buoyed by the recent success of the team and the strong initial response to the fundraising drive, Frericks may have believed the school was able to swing the project by itself. If this was the case the poor showing of the team in the winter of 1967 and the turmoil of the Waterman affair did not help. By the beginning of 1968, Frericks had to contend with the possibility that he could no longer count on the enthusiasm of the city’s fans to help push through the financial support the school needed. His Arena Associate campaign had proven highly successful. It raised approximately $500,000 dollars ($3.7 million) in the first nine months. But the program had never been conceived of as a way of paying for the arena’s construction. Although a considerable sum, nearly an eighth of the entire planned cost of the construction, it was not enough to begin – let alone complete – the building. The intrepid Frericks also had to know that it was likely that the cost of construction would exceed the budget stipulated by the President and Board of Trustees, an amount considered by by architects as the bare-bones minimum needed to build. Delays and unforeseen circumstances might take place and Frericks had to be ready in case these happened. And there was little hope that the university’s administration would authorize a wider funding campaign for the arena’s construction.

This was because President Roesch was on the verge of announcing an ambitious new $43 million dollar ($317-million) funding drive titled “Threshold of Greatness.”  Money raised by this campaign was already earmarked for other needs. Making matters worse for Frericks, administrators were not confident they could even raise this sum from sources outside of Dayton. As a result, President Roesch and the Board of Trustees hired a consulting firm to test the willingness of local business leaders to supply $4 million ($30.6 million) of the total. The consultants confirmed what UD administrators already suspected: while there were donors ready to give, UD should not count on raising more than $3 million ($22 million). [87] All of this meant that Frericks was going to have to find the money himself, and it appeared he had diminishing options: the chances that the city would contribute to the construction or help to secure a favorable loan had all but vanished, and local donors were being tapped for other needs.

NIT to the Rescue

In a stroke of good fortune for Frericks, the Flyers’ play improved in late January of 1968. After a loss against Louisville, Donoher found a lineup that worked. At the same time the team entered the easiest part of its schedule. The Flyers swept their opponents in the following five-game home stand, improving to 12 and 9 for the season. With four games left it appeared that the team had a chance to make the NIT but could not afford to lose again. Although the NIT committee was concerned about the team’s nine losses, the winning streak and the program’s reputation was enough to land them a berth in the tournament. The team’s improved play and invitation to the NIT did a great deal to distract fans from the revelations of the Waterman interview, which took place during this stretch.

“NIT Championship Celebration” Source: Dayton Daily News Archive, https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/rf/image_large/Pub/p8/MyDaytonDailyNews/2017/03/04/Images/ddn032810sparch001.JPG.

The team’s NIT run improved donations to the Arena Associates fund while keeping the charges of racism hidden behind the more stirring story of the team’s perseverance and reversal of fortune. Sports Illustrated’s recap of the tournament typified the coverage: the shocking background events were isolated to approximately four lines and downplayed there impact further by an emphasis May’s recovery from injuries as the cause of the teams early season woes. [90] In the midst of the run Frericks tried to reframe the financial situation. The city had not decided to refuse him the money he needed, he told David Hopcraft of The Journal Herald on March 19, 1968, the university had decided to pay for the arena through private financing. [91] The university, the declaration suggested, was very confident that the needed money was forthcoming. The reassurance it produced helped to drive Arena Associates donations up to $800,000 by the end of the following year. It also seems likely that by this point Frericks was confident he had secured the money he needed. Eleven days before, on March 8, 1968, Bill 453 became law. This legislation enacted Chapter 3377 of the Ohio Revised Code creating the Ohio Higher Education Facilities Commission, whose mission was to support the construction of “academic and other facilities” for private schools “by the sale of revenue bonds issued by the Commission.” As the Commissions mission statement declares:

The Commission enters into agreements whereby a college or university leases the facilities from the Commission and pays rent to the Commission in the amount needed to retire the Commission’s bonds. Since the Commission is an agency of the State of Ohio, the interest paid by the Commission to the bondholders is exempt from federal income tax. Bonds providing tax-free interest income normally sell on the market at a lower rate of interest than taxable bonds. The use of the financing arrangements for facility construction made possible by the Ohio Higher Educational Facility Commission is entirely voluntary. […] The Commission desires to assist eligible [independent, not-for-profit] colleges and universities in Ohio to the extent each institution wishes to take advantage of the services. [92]

Frericks was aware of the introduction of Bill 453 and was in contact with its most influential sponsor. How UD’s need for a larger arena influenced the passage of this state bill indicated the larger game Frericks was playing, one that makes clear the intersecting lines of local, state, and national events that come together in the UD Arena.