Murray State Director of Athletics Nico Yantko announced a plan and presented renderings of a new look for the CFSB Center at the Board of Regents retreat on Thursday, Sept. 12.
A closed lower bowl concept with corner suites, ledge seating and a new “bunker club” area are all in the conceptual renderings Yantko showed to the Board. Yantko said he wants to upgrade the CFSB Center the right way by “prioritizing the entertainment value and leveraging some philanthropy along the way.”
“The pitch of the venue will shift,” Yantko said. “The bowling in of the venue will completely change and transform the experience to really make this an electric environment. Probably the best at the mid-major level and no doubt the best in the Missouri Valley Conference.”
Yantko said the student section area of seating will be retractable which will still allow commencement to take place inside the CFSB Center, but also will allow for concerts and other entertainment opportunities to take place inside the venue. He is also looking into adding a “Winner’s Circle Plaza Brick Campaign” to the exterior of the arena.
“When you look at our campus, if we’re the front porch, [the CFSB Center] is our welcome mat,” Yantko said. “We want to be able to tell our story within a minute of showing up on our campus. Where people can buy and participate in a brick campaign and share memories and celebrate key moments and key players in our history.”
Yantko gave the Board an update on some of the facility upgrades that have been made so far since he took over as athletic director in 2022. Those upgrades include fixing the men’s basketball and football locker room and lounges, the Weaver Center for Academic Excellence, Baseball and Softball Performance Facility addition, the weight room over at Stewart Stadium and fixing the bunkers at Miller Memorial Golf Course.
The Board learned just how much the freshly implemented “Dennis Jackson Leadership Program” is helping student-athletes academically, giving opportunities in the era of NIL and giving players access to educational programs, such as financial literacy and life after sports.
Yantko said the spring semester saw all 15 athletic programs achieve a 3.0 GPA and their 3.34 GPA was the highest it’s been in school history. It was the 40th consecutive semester where all the teams had a cumulative 3.0 GPA. He said they don’t want to “jeopardize our integrity and excellence in academic pursuits for athletics.”
“It’s like winning the Super Bowl,” Yantko said. “The hardest part isn’t winning the first time; it’s winning the second time. We set the bar and we’re going to [continue] to aspire for that.”
Murray State received recognition from BrandR, a company that allows people to buy their favorite players merchandise, as a “Top Producer” throughout the entire country. Yantko said there were only two schools that Murray State was neck and neck with through the year, one of those schools was the University of Connecticut, who is the back-to-back national champions in Men’s Basketball, and an unnamed SEC program.
