Bethany Lutheran College’s Athletic Facilities Support Year-Round Access to Sport

Tarkett Sports solutions from FieldTurf and Beynon Sports are contributing to the school’s enhanced recruitment efforts across multiple sports

Key Takeaways: Bethany Lutheran College

• Bethany Lutheran College leverages FieldTurf and Beynon Sports surfacing to deliver year-round, multi-sport training despite Minnesota’s challenging climate.
• The upgraded facilities support a wide range of varsity, practice, and indoor field events, including unique highlights like an indoor steeplechase pit.
• Nearly half of the student body participates in athletics, with the new surfaces improving safety, performance, and regulation-level play.
• The complex serves both campus and community needs, hosting intramurals, local schools, walking programs, and regional rentals.
• Enhanced facilities have become a major recruiting advantage, driving enrollment growth—most notably a nearly 50% increase in the baseball program.

Bethany Lutheran College demonstrates how Tarkett Sports’ diverse sports surfacing solutions support existing student-athletes while attracting new ones. With FieldTurf artificial turf at both Scheels Field and Bethany Activity Center, and Beynon Sports track surfacing at the latter, the Mankato, Minnesota-based school is delivering a year-round athletic experience.

With facilities that support training across numerous sports, Bethany Lutheran, aka “The Home of the Vikings”, will continue to drive recruitment and strengthen the school’s position in the Upper Midwest Atlantic Conference. Check out the video for the full story:

Edited transcript of Nick Neubauer, Director of Bethany Activity Center and Scheels Field, and Daniel Mundah, Sr. VP of Finance and Administration – Bethany Lutheran College, discussing the artificial turf and track installations.

Nick Neubauer (NN): Bethany Lutheran College is a religious school based in Mankato, Minnesota.

Daniel Mundah (DM): We've got a student enrollment a little bit over 900, coming up on our 100th anniversary here in the next year, and so it's going to be a big celebration here on campus.

NN: Bethany competes in the UMAC Conference, so it's the Upper Midwest Atlantic Conference. The majority of the schools in our conference are smaller religious schools.

DM: 44% of our student body is involved in athletics. Our old field wasn't quite the regulation size. It was crowned. It used to be an old football field and running track area, and so to up our game in sports, for our type of season and year and potential opportunity to add other sports, we went with an outdoor field turf.

NN: The specific uses of the facilities are primarily for practice—baseball, softball, track and field teams, and then soccer as well.

DM: Our turf field indoors is for shot put and discus, and so in some of the areas we've got deeper landing pads underneath.

NN: Behind me, we have high jump, we have pole vault, we have long jump and triple jump, and then even in the back, too, we have an indoor steeplechase pit. To our knowledge, it's one of the only indoor steeplechase pits in the state.

DM: The running track, it's all poured and not put in like a flare square carpeting type of thing. The turf is resilient to the sun, especially outdoor turf. Part of the other thing was safety considerations. We examined their concussion testing protocols and results that came back for the type of turf and type of infill that's there.

NN: The weather isn't very good, sometimes in late fall, winter, so this actually provides our teams an area to practice year-round. They're able to get live, in-game feel throughout the fall, winter, early spring, throughout the whole year.

Student body-wise, intramurals is obviously a big thing. Some of them are not necessarily athletes, some of them are just students on campus getting involved. They're able to do some indoor soccer stuff. If the weather is not as great outside, they can come inside and do some flag football stuff. Obviously, I mentioned that Ultimate Frisbee is a big one, they're able to come in and do some things as well.

DM: We’re trying to be a good corporate citizen for the city of Mankato and North Mankato and the greater area, because they've been very supportive of us. Different high schools come in here to use our track. People can buy a walking membership program. So, we've got people in here in the morning, during the wintertime, walking all the time.

NN: We've had lacrosse groups in town come in and use the facility too, which is something we never thought was possible. There’s a lot of different groups, it gets more and more every year, bigger and bigger. Obviously, the rental income is a big part of the building. It's spanned all the way across the state.

Recruiting has been the biggest part, especially for all the teams I mentioned earlier: baseball, softball, track and field, and soccer. It’s an absolute difference maker for our school. There are people who didn't know about Bethany before the building was built, and then all of a sudden, now it gets them on campus, so that's been a huge thing.

DM: Our baseball program has almost grown by 50%. This fall we have like 70 baseball players on campus. So, it's enhanced our recruitment building because what it does, it allows the people to practice, play, and use the facilities even in inclement weather.

NN: Numbers are up all around the board. A lot of schools in our conference, it's a smaller conference, and they're smaller schools, they don't have a facility like this. I think it keeps our guys fresh all year round, so they're more ready, especially when their season comes.