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Ford Field had officially become Ford basketball arena, in a grander sense.
But Gardner, the senior director of facility management at Ford Field, is not content just yet. No, that feeling will come on Friday when fans pack the stadium to see Kansas take on Villanova and Wisconsin face Davidson in the Midwest Regional semifinals.
“The greatest satisfaction is when those fans roar when the players come out of the tunnel,” Gardner said. “That’s when we know we did a great job.”
For Gardner, the man in charge of converting the NFL’s Detroit Lions’ den into an NCAA Tournament venue, this was no ordinary project. Ford Field will be the first football stadium to place the basketball court on the 50-yard line and use all the seating around it — the capacity for the event will be 72,818. In the past, football stadiums have used an end-zone configuration when playing host to NCAA Tournament games, which cuts the number of seats.
However, this isn’t the first time that college basketball will be played in the middle of Ford Field. Gardner and his eight-man crew helped configure the stadium in a similar fashion for “Basketbowl,” a 2003 game between Michigan State and Kentucky that drew 78,129 fans — an NCAA record.
“We just packed that place,” Gardner said. “It was just unbelievable, with all the cheering and the noise.”
However, Gardner said the NCAA decided to expand on the “Basketbowl” setup for this year’s Sweet 16, so there will be some differences. There’s a scoreboard hanging over the court now. Gardner’s crew also ripped out 3,000 permanent seats in the lower bowl and built risers from the floor over the concrete wall that surrounds the field in an effort to improve sightlines.
“All seats are on a 4-inch rise,” he said. “Nobody’s looking at the back of someone’s head; they’re all above each other so there are clean sightlines to the court.”
Gardner says there could be room to expand, too.
“We’ve learned from doing this installation where there could be some opportunities for added seats,” he said. “We could expand the riser systems in the corners a little bit.”
And if all goes well, it probably won’t be the last time you see a domed NCAA Tournament venue configured this way. The Final Four will be held at domed football stadiums the next three years (Ford Field in 2009, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2010 and Reliant Stadium in Houston in 2011).
“The point of the whole thing is to make sure this system will work in other stadiums,” Gardner said. “It’s more for uniformity, so that when you turn on the Final Four for years to come, you’ll see this configuration and it will be the same.”
Another unique benefit to playing in such a big venue is the widespread availability of tickets. Jim Marchiony, KU associate athletic director for external relations, has no idea how many KU fans will pack Ford Field. But unlike Omaha last weekend, there seems to be an unlimited supply of tickets .
“We’ve got 1,250 (tickets) that we’ve been allotted, and those were gone a while ago,” he said. “They are trying to fit 60 or 70,000 people in there. I would envision a lot of blue.”
It obviously isn’t a big deal to KU’s players. Guard Brandon Rush, in fact, thought he would be playing at The Palace at Auburn Hills.
“I didn’t know we were playing in a big stadium like that,” Rush said, after being told about Ford Field. “I’m looking forward to it.”
He’s not the only one.
“It’s a very important day in history, and we’re going to be ready,” Gardner said.
Video: Kansas Jayhawks prepare for Sweet 16 matchup with Villanova
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