It’s no secret that the Pacific University athletic program is continuously growing each year.
With more athletes and sports teams than ever before, this raises the question of whether or not the athletic department can keep up with the growing number of student athletes.
The Pacific Athletic Center, otherwise known as the Stoller Center, was constructed in 1970 and is one of the largest small school athletic facilities in the northwest.
Although it is one of the largest athletic facilities in the northwest, it is not strictly for the athletic programs offered at Pacific.
It is also home to the department of exercise science, a popular major at Pacific. This creates space limitations that the athletic department is aware of.
“The idea would be to create extra space to help out both the athletic side as well as the academic side,” Athletic Director Ken Schumann said. “We are in the middle of working on expanding.”
Another current issue in the athletic department is the scheduling of practices and games for the multiple teams who have to share the turf field of Lincoln Park.
“Scheduling has certainly been something we have been working on for years now,” Schumann said. “We’ve come to a point where we have a situation that’s workable but not ideal.”
A solution that is in the works is adding another field at the Cannery Lot, located east of Lincoln Park, that is owned by the university.
”We still have more work to do out there. We have spent time and money to upgrade our fields on the Cannery lots,” Schumann said. “We can provide more field space for some of our programs and help relieve some of the pressure in Lincoln Park. We have made some progress out there, but we still have a ways to go.”
One project that can be expected to be done in the next few years is the instalment of new turf in Lincoln Park.
“We have our turf field for 10 years now. It’s still in good shape but it’s nearing the end of its life,” Schumann said. “That will be a more near term thing, to go ahead and replace that so that we have a field that is useable for our teams.”
Although there is no official timetable on when these projects can expected to be done, Schumann and the university are putting the plans in place to expand and improve the facilities at Pacific. Schumann believes they will be complete in the near future.
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