Athletic Department
puts new face on
parts of NU campus
SPORTS from page 1
seen massive construction, mostly to the
stadium’s west corridor.
The main part of the project
involves the 42 “state-of-the-art” sky
boxes and a new two-level press, radio
and TV facility that Athletic Director
Bill Byrne said ranks right up there with
any stadium facility in the nation.
But the high-paying fans and citi
zens who can afford the skyboxes and
the press are not the only people who
will enjoy the spoils of a renovated sta
dium. Also included in the project are
what the athletic department calls “fan
amenities” throughout the stadium,
such as improved concessions and triple
the number of rest rooms.
The new renovations and additions
to the stadium follow those from 1994
and 1995. They included a brand-new
sound system and HuskerVision, the
athletic department’s own television
production unit, whose most famous
features are the two big-screen replay
monitors at the northwest and southeast
comers of the stadium.
“Everybody’s happy with the way
things are looking around here,” Byrne
said. ‘It should look great when it’s all
done, and it will be done on time.”
The most recent change to the stadi
um is the installation of a new field play
ing surface, FieldTurf. It replaces the
Astroturf-8 surface that had been tram
pled on since 1992.
On July 27, the old field was ripped
up and as of Monday, the FieldTurf
installation was still in the works.
Ingram said he expects the field to be
ready by August 15, eight days after die
teams’ fall practice begins.
Therefore, the first few days of prac
tice will be held in Cook Pavillion,
which has already installed FieldTurf,
and outdoor practice fields.
FieldTurf just may very well be the
dream surface for football players - the
perfect compromise between the natural
and less harmful grass surface and the
easier-to-maintain but injury-causing
artificial turf.
The Nebraska football team is the
first major program, collegiate or pro
fessional, to use this new surface.
“FieldTurf is a state-of-the-art sur
face,” Byrne said. “Our athletes have
been working out voluntarily on it all
summer, and the general consensus has
been very favorable.”
Although an artificial surface,
FieldTurf has a more natural-grass
structure and feel than the carpet-like
surfaces the team has played on since
the original Astro-Turf was installed in
1970.
“We found it to be less abrasive than
other artificial surfaces, and it looks and
feels like grass,” Byrne said. “We
believe it will be die next generation of
turf used in college athletics.”
“It eliminates the rug bums, yet it is
so durable the players can wear any kind
of shoe on it, even basketball shoes if
they want to,” Ingram said.
Originally, the athletic department
planned to replace the Astroturf-8 for
the 2000 season. But recently, it saw the
lure of FieldTurf, its price and the
chance to be the first team to play on it,
and found it all too appealing.
“We had an opportunity to get in
quickly, and we did it,” Byrne said. “It’s
looked like a quality product, plus it was
rather inexpensive, so we said ‘why
not?”’
The $248,000 it will cost to pur
chase and install the FieldTurf field is
about one-fourth the cost of the
Astroturf-8. Yet, some would wonder if
the investment was worth it considering
no other major football program has
used the surface.
“Anytime you do something differ
ent, you feel Idee you’re taking a risk,”
Byrne said. “But we wouldn’t do this if
we didn’t think the athletes would like
it.”
Ingram, Head Coach Frank Solich
and players Matt Davison and Clint
Finley toured a pair of FieldTurf sites in
Amarillo, Texas, and Wichita, Kan., in
March and liked what they saw.
The surface was installed in the
Schulte Fieldhouse in May and was
used during the Big Red Football
School.
“We have been investing in
FieldTurf for some time, and it is our
feeling that it may be the safest field to
play on, regardless if you are talking
about grass or artificial surface,” Solich
said.
“Our athletes seem to favor it and
that helped us make the decision to
install it”
Also, the field will no longer bear
the words ‘Tom Osborne Field,” as the
old surface did. It will retain the name,
but will not display it, at Osborne’s
request.
The groundbreaking turf replace
ment and sky box/stadium renovation
were done to insure that Nebraska’s tra
dition-rich, powerhouse football pro
gram remains both ahead of its game
and ahead of its time.
But a sport at Nebraska that has not
tasted such tradition-rich national suc
cess is also getting its piece of die reno
vation pie - baseball.
For 13 straight seasons at Buck
Beltzer Field - the team’s current home
on campus and near the football and
track facilities - the Huskers failed to
make the NCAA Tournament. They
muddled through mediocrity, settling on
being a cold-weather program whose
facilities, according to Van Horn, didn’t
measure up to fellow Big 12 Conference
powers.
“I’d say easily our facility right now
is in the bottom third of the Big 12 and
the bottom half of the nation,” Van Horn
said.
“We didn’t have a warning track, the
football team used the outfield as aprac
tice field, die grass was rough. It didn’t
stack up.”
But the new stadium and facility
will. The facility will be located near
campus at 6th and Charleston Streets
and is proposed to be completed by
2001.
Along with providing a home for a
Lincoln minor league baseball team, the
facility will provide new fields and sta
diums for both baseball and softball,
which should ensure the 1999 NCAA
Tournament-qualifying teams contin
ued success.
“I’ve known about it for a long, long
time. It’s going to be a first-class facili
ty,” Van Horn said.
“We’ve been able to talk about it to
recruits for 11 or 12 months. Now we
can go sell it to the kids. It’s exciting for
recruits to come here and see this nice,
new ballpark.”
The new ballpark does not just ben
efit the baseball and softball teams. The
current outfield that is used for football
practice will be used exclusively for
football practice when the baseball team
moves. That takes away football prac
tice from the track field area, which is
also being reconstructed.
NU Head Track and Field Coach
Gary Pepin didn’t even know where to
begin when asked about the improve
ments of the outdoor track facility,
which is located next to both football
and baseball facilities.
“Let’s just say it was long overdue,”
Pepin said.
“To have a successful team and to
get great performances out of your ath
letes, you need a facility that will be able
to host major competitions and attract
the best teams and athletes. We didn’t
have that. Now we will.”
The track facility reconstruction
started at the beginning of summer and
should be completed by mid-September
to mid-October, Pepin said. However,
the field area die football team practices
on will be ready by Sept. 15.
Major improvements will include a
new grass field, a new track surface, a
new crown, a new sprinkler system, a
new drainage system and new pipes.
Also included are a new fence and a
new walkway around the track that will
lead to die Cook Pavilion, thus ensuring
other people and sports teams will not
have to trample the track and field to get
to the building.
Plus, the track will be bigger and
wider, Pepin said.
Many new areas tor
certain events, such as
the pole vault, long
jump and triple jump are
also being reconstruct
ed.
“It’s a major recon
struction,” Pepin said.
“They didn’t just go out
there and plop stuff
down. It will be one of the finest facili
ties in the nation, which will only help
our team and our recruiting.”
Pepin also said that plans are in die
works to upgrade the indoor track facil
ity to a nationally-competitive level are
underway, as well. He said the recon
struction and renovation of both tracks
will attract major competitions such as
the Big 12 Championships and the
National Junior Olympics. It was sup
posed to be done for the 2000 spring
season, but has been delayed because of
problems with cost estimation.
Pepin - like the other coaches who
have gone through or will go through
facility upgrading and reconstruction -
considers the experience somewhat of a
pain, but knows in the long run, it will
only make his program stronger.
“I’m picky when I go out there and
watch the people work on it, and it’s
taken away some of my time from
coaching and recruiting,” Pepin said.
“But I have great pride in what I’m
seeing. We have had tremendous sup
port from Bill Byrne and the athletic
department.”
Photos (clockwise from top right)
ANOTHER TEN YARDS of Fleldturf Is
being lain down at Memorial
Stadium Wednesday by the employ
ees of Fleldturf Midwest, L.L.C. of
Nebraska City.
A SAND AND RUDDER MIX is loaded
Wednesday for Cook Pavilion’s new
Fleldturf which has been lain but Is
not yet ready for use.
FIELDTURF MIDWEST, L.L.C.
employees double-stitch two 10
yard wide strips of Fleldturf, a sur
face which Is supposed to be softer
and mere durable.
CONCRETE IS DEINO POURED at the
track field Wadnasdav as construe
uflvik iiuiu noinvoDyaf ^d^p op^p^w^peu^eua
tlen centimes for Improvement of
the field.