KU celebrates stadium milestone with 'topping off' ceremony

Standing on a pile of rock and dirt where the grass turf used to be, Kansas running back Devin Neal turned to KU AD Travis Goff at Thursday’s “topping off” ceremony at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and said, “Ahhh, I can’t believe I’m not gonna be able to play in this thing.”

Goff’s response said everything.

“But, Devin, you built it,” Goff told him.

There with 15-20 of his teammates, hundreds of construction workers and officials from KU, Kansas Athletics and Turner Construction, Neal and Goff watched as the final beam was raised at the new stadium during a customary “topping off” ceremony to mark the most recent major milestone in the construction.

The beam, which was placed on the top level in the southwest corner of the stadium, was signed by the entire KU football team and several members of Kansas Athletics on one side and a couple hundred construction workers on the other.

A few current Jayhawks even put names of players from last year's team and even the year or two before that to pay homage to their part in getting the program turned around and making the new stadium a possibility.

The beam, which was raised into the sky by a giant crane with an American flag on one end, a blue Kansas Jayhawks flag on the other and a small evergreen tree in the middle in sticking with the tradition of ushering in prosperity and good luck for the new venue, was the final piece of 6,500 pieces of steel that was used to build the frame of the new venue.

So far, 4,000 man hours have been put into the construction project, with another 3,000 scheduled before completion next August.

Jason Brown, who spoke on behalf of Turner Construction, said the stadium construction, for what will be the focal point of KU’s new Gateway District project, had gone smoothly and that he was thrilled to be a part of Thursday’s ceremony.

“This thing’s gonna be amazing,” Brown said. “It’s on budget, it’s on schedule, so it’s gonna happen.”

Brown joined Goff, Neal, senior defensive end Jereme Robinson, KU coach Lance Leipold, Dan Martin, the head of KU Endowment, and KU Chancellor Doug Girod in speaking to Thursday’s crowd at the event.

While each man who spoke made sure to thank the hundreds of people involved in making the new stadium happen, each put his own twist on things.

Goff spoke of a desire to keep climbing, consistent with KU’s “To the stars” campaign.

Neal talked about leaving the place better than he found it.

And Leipold drew a parallel between the project and his own team.

“Much like this stadium, we’re not done yet,” Leipold said.

It’s that vision for the future and what’s still to come, while celebrating those who helped make it possible, that had Goff so tickled by the remarks made by Neal and Robinson, two players who will never get the joy of playing inside the new stadium when it’s finished.

“For him, for Jeremy, for all those seniors and the guys that came before them, of course, to know they had really an incredible hand in building something so tangible is pretty powerful,” Goff said. “And then they'll obviously have the chance to come back. I toyed around with Devin (and) said, ‘Hey, man, where do you want (your) name (to go) when we get that Ring of Honor up there? Because we know that's going to be something that will come. So, I know he's the kind of kid with maturity and a perspective that really grasped the magnitude of this.”

Goff said Neal did not pick his place, noting with a grin that Neal’s focus this week is solely on Saturday’s game at West Virginia.

“One of our core pillars in our program is to leave it better than you found it,” Neal said while speaking to the crowd. “A lot of us are seniors, older guys, we won't be able to play in the stadium, but everything we've done to this point, we get to experience the niceness of seeing that last steel beam go up, and it means a lot to us. Like I said, we won't play in the stadium, but for all the future generations of Jayhawk football players, (they’re going to) understand the work that was put in to get to this point, and so we really appreciate all the work that's gone into seeing this beautiful stadium go up. We love you guys and we thank you.”

While some of the specifics of the final product remain up in the air, Goff said Thursday that he anticipated the seating capacity for next season to be above 40,000 and that the final seating number is still flexible because the plan for Phase II and the rebuilding of the east stands remains a work in progress, with room to go up or down depending on what best suits the program’s needs and creates the best home-field advantage.

As for the financial aspect, the total project, when it was announced, was estimated to be around $450 million. Goff said Thursday that the goal for the Phase 1 price tag was around $250 million and that KU was “on the doorstep” of securing $200 million through fundraising for that work.

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