The UK Soccer Complex is hosting its first NCAA Tournament game Saturday since 2003—the first in women’s soccer since 1999—and the close-up will allow a good look at the facility’s worth amid a feasibility study for extensive renovations to the Soccer Complex and the adjacent Softball Complex.
The proposed cost of the project would be $13.25 million, according to the feasibility study which was obtained through an open records search to the University of Kentucky.
Results of the feasibility study were published in July, and the document details a number of suggested improvements to keep the soccer and softball areas up to date. Among the most significant proposals for the soccer area include the installation of 2,214 combined permanent seats including 760 chair-back seats, new locker room and lounge areas for both men’s and women’s soccer, new scoreboards and a video board, and a renovated press box.
“It’s definitely in the works. When it will happen, I don’t know,” women’s soccer head coach Jon Lipsitz said. “I’ll tell you what, you build up softball’s side and you build up this, you show me a better facility in the country. And that’s what we can get to.
“The fact that it isn’t done yet isn’t because of a lack of commitment. We’ve had the field redone, we got the new tower which is amazing. And you know what? We’ve got to win. The last thing I’m going to do is say, ‘Oh yeah, you’re putting all this money in this program and, yeah, we’re not doing our part.’ We have to show our commitment back to them.”
The men’s and women’s soccer teams are in their first year playing on a newly installed playing surface, which improved both the turf itself and the drainage system underneath. The new field cost the athletics department $110,000, according to the UK Athletics Association’s 2010-11 fiscal year budget.
A new video tower between the soccer playing and practice fields was installed before the 2011 season as well, which athletics director Mitch Barnhart said was due in part to an 2010 accident that killed a Notre Dame student while filming a football practice in a temporary video tower.
Proposals to the softball complex include upgrades to the softball locker rooms, an indoor practice facility (100 feet by 100 feet), 880 chair-back seats, improvements to the dugouts and a renovated press box.
Athletics director Mitch Barnhart said it’s important to him to reflect the commitment to winning and recruiting that Lipsitz has showed so far in his first three years. It also helps, Barnhart said, that softball has had similar success recently. The softball team hosted an NCAA Super Regional in 2011 and was one win away from its first-ever Women’s College World Series appearance.
“Our actual fields are fine. Surrounding the field, we’ve got to get that better,” Barnhart said. “We want to continue to do that. I’m a proponent of—at least I hope—trying to help those programs that have gained some ground and had success. We think we’ve picked off certain projects from time to time and moved them to the forefront. Soccer is certainly deserving of that attention with what they’ve done.
“Is it doable? Yeah, it just costs money. We’ve got to figure our way through that.”
The feasibility study offers no timeline on the proposed project; it’s simply a matter of acting on it if and when the money becomes available.
Lipsitz said one of the reasons he left Charlotte to become Kentucky’s head coach in 2008 was Barnhart’s apparent commitment to making the women’s soccer program one of the best in the country.
Hosting the first-round NCAA Tournament game on Saturday shows that his plan to rebuild the program is on pace, Lipsitz said. The support he’s felt has made it all easier, he said.
“I can’t even begin to tell you all the things, both in public and in private, that Mitch and (associate athletics director) Coach (John) Cropp have done to support this program,” Lipsitz said. “It’s over the top. We don’t want for anything. There are natural progressions that come for successful programs, and we look forward to earning those things. We don’t want for anything. We have to earn it.”
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