By Steven Mauch · Assistant Business Manager
New athletic facilities are under construction at Grove City College, with the William C. Stewart Baseball Field and the McNulty Athletic Center scheduled for completion in early 2027.
Jeffrey Prokovich, vice president of advancement, noted that work has already been done, with preliminary preparations and earth removal occurring over fall break.
Due to the rather isolated construction location, Prokovich estimated the construction project will suffer little disruption and should be done in a matter of months. While not exactly speedy, this timeline is a change of pace from the recent construction project on Rockwell and Smith Hall, which took two years to complete.
The new baseball field will be built on the site of R. Jack Behringer Field, the current baseball field. The McNulty Athletic Center is being built on the field between the Physical Learning Center (PLC) and the soccer field.
According to Prokovich, the current baseball field has been an “inferior field for many years,” and renovations for PLC weight rooms “are long overdue.”
Prokovich said Stewart Field should be ready for baseball in the spring and cost approximately $5 million.
The McNulty Athletic Center is estimated to cost around $7 million.
For staff and students who spend most of their time on the field or in the gym, these renovations mean more than just aesthetics.
“They’re also going to put in new batting cages, new dugouts (and a) new backstop, which is going to make everything safer for everybody,” said Assistant Athletic Director and men’s soccer coach Mike Dreves. “If you go out to the baseball field now, you’ll see its grass, and right field is 10 feet higher than home plate. The field’s not level, even.
“We’ve got a great baseball team, and I think we will have a great facility for them to play in. The bubble is going to provide tennis courts, indoor track, locker rooms and then a weight room, which is going to provide great athletic facilities for our athletes, but also relieve the strain on the PLC.”
Graham Romer, a sophomore pitcher on the baseball team, agrees.
“I think it’s going to be awesome,” he said. “We will get to practice a lot more and play a lot more when (at) times, we wouldn’t have been able to because of weather.”
Romer also hopes the Athletic Center will provide new training advantages by including turf.
“It will help our fielders get better with their fielding and also get used to playing on other people’s fields, because right now, we practice on our field,” Romer said. “And that gets us to be used to our field hops and not the other people’s, so it’s better overall for sure.”
A field hop, or the behavior or bounce of a ball depending on the ground it lands on, can vary greatly depending on the field you play on. Players who can practice on fields that create a similar “hop” to where they compete will be better able to predict the movement of the ball.
While it will immediately benefit current students, Romer believes this renovation will have a great marketing allure, saying the better fields may bring in more recruits.
Dreves is already thankful for the renovation and foresees big things for Grovers who want to play ball.
“We’re just really thankful that people have contributed financially to make this possible,” Dreves said. “We’re appreciative of the opportunity that we’re going to have to have some really nice facilities. And, I think, in our league, we have the potential to have, top to bottom, (the) best facilities in the conference.”
