Stanford, California. – In view of Announcement He was planning to build a new, $ 50 million softball stadium, coach Jessica Alastair Cloud Nine. Such investment in softball is rare, and felt lucky that the university was showing this commitment to its program.
Allister saw other renovation or upgrade around the country before and around the country, in those cases, construction usually begins at the end of the season and lasts for about nine months, for the next season – or at least time conference starts playing.
She was under the assumption that Stanford’s timeline would be the same. Then in January of 2023, there was a meeting about the construction of the facility.
“I can really remember the meeting that we were going to,” Alastair told ESPN. At that time my administrator looked at me and said, ‘I think we are going to receive some news that you are not going to like today.’ ,
Certainly, he was correct. The scope of the project was very large, able to complete the construction during offsen, meaning that Stanford Softball would be without home ground for 2025 season.
“My early views were,” right, they are making you a $ 50 million stadium, going to have some bumps and scratches on the way, so it’s fine, “he said. “And then my next idea was that it is someone’s senior year and it is also 25% of the Stanford experience of most of the students-athletes in our campus, and we need to find a way to ensure that it can be as good as it may be.”
Stanford administrators worked some possibilities, including playing on the road completely for the 2025 season, whether it is True Road Games or a tenant in a nearby school-like Santa Clara or San Jose to state home game. But allister was near those who were not an acceptable solution.
Stanford’s Athletic Complex is the largest in college sports, so a place was moved to a place detection to a temporary area in the premises to focus.
“You need a public address, you need some kind of bleacher. If you have a scoreboard, video board, all these pieces, it would be really good. And we were looking throughout the campus, how can it work?” Dan Levin, an associate athletics director for the facilities, said. “We saw some of our small features and as we were talking, I remember that I am on Google Maps and looking at the size of the softball field and saying,” I think we can be able to leave it in the stadium. “
The stadium, in this case, was the football stadium.
“We all saw each other, and is this possible?” Levin said.
It was revealed, it was. There was just enough space to fit an area that fulfilled all NCAA-essential norms, so it was just a matter of logistics. They must wait for the end of the football season and have a seller to install a dirt area, protective mesh, a warning track, a fence and other details to meet the standard of a division I softball stadium.
“I think it was (athletic director Bernard Muir), who said,” Jess, we have found. You are playing at the football stadium, “and my jaw fell,” Alastair said. “And I like it, ‘really?” And then he said, ‘Yes, think about it. You have found grass, we have scoreboard, we have got music, I know everything for concessions, bathrooms, sports day experience, they need a new sod anyway, we will put it in an informed, “
First, Alastair said she was not completely convinced. If she had handed over a grade, it would have been B-Mineus.
“Then as it all got out and it came into life, it became a solid A-Plus,” he said. “It is just completely unprecedented and beyond anything that I could imagine.”
On Saturday, when Stanford hosts rivals Cal (4 pm on ACC Extra), the school will try to break the 12,566 single-game NCAA Softball attendance record, which was set in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City last year.
“It seems that you have to do it, okay? We will never play again in a football stadium, I don’t think,” Alastair said. “And no one else is playing in the football stadium. Therefore, it is just a lifetime opportunity, and it was clearly something that we needed to try.”
In the last one year, when Alastair told people that the team was playing at the football stadium this season, the first thing she asked was logistics.
“Then his next question is, so when are you going to try to sell it?” He said. “And I like, ‘Okay, we’ll see.” But the Cal series looks like a natural fit.
These dimensions are slightly different than Stanford being accustomed. Below the right-field line, the fence is just 192 feet, which is more than two feet from NCAA and is about 20 feet shallow compared to the right-old line of cardinal in its permanent house. Stanford has scored 35 domestic runs at home so far this season, which is the 13th highest in the country.
“We are hitting a lot of domestic runs in the region, of course,” outfielder Kelan Coach, who is a graduate senior. “It has been great.”
The coach said that the players of the team have appreciated the extra effort in making this season memorable as new facilities are being made.
“Other schools may not have been most likely and we have to play on the road almost the entire season,” she said. “So we were really excited to be able to play at home and we have our own field and this is really a good thing.”
