Can thank a political hack carpetbagger nicknamed "Jaybird" for that! Original plans for the CAM had around 12,000 seats AND AC. Cost estimates overran the planned budget and the State Board of Regents in Charleston said "cut, . . . scale back your plans, MU". Governor concurred, but soon thereafter gave the nod for State monies to be used to expand the original Mountaineer Field up in the whole. Basically, told MU and the Huntington area that you are just second-class citizens in this State! And, of course, the local pols in power in H-town and in Cabell County just took it without a whimper!!
The original renderings had it at 14k seats, with no bleachers. Although that was probably too ambitious, the BofR sticking their collective fingers in the recipe took it down to 10,250, bleachers in the upper sections, no A/C, no separate indoor track that necessitated the sliding seats (that never worked and eventually broke entirely), cheap seating that pitched a person forward in their seats, mandated multi-purpose uses that created a sub-standard 25 meter pool rather than the originally designed 50 meter one and a host of other "cheapening" of the facility that we're still paying for today.
After reluctantly acquiescing to the mandated changes, the then-administration threatened to resign if the seating fell below 10k. The threat also included a promise to go to the Gazette to list the improvements approved by the BofR to New Mountaineer Field at the same time it mandated the cuts to the Cam.
As an aside, and prior to the building of the Cam, the then-administration tried to work with the City to build a mini-Rupp type arena at, about, 14th Street and was told to pound sand as it was "too far from downtown".
And now you know...
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