New Track Facility Could Push Salukis to New Level

With an outdoor facility older than she is, Southern Illinois University track coach Connie Price-Smith built a top 10 squad.

With a new $3.96 million facility that is expected to be completed by the new year, Price-Smith could help the Salukis soar even higher.

The new facility just east of Abe Martin Field is set to include a 400-meter track, accommodations for regulation NCAA field events, and a 4,500-square foot locker room/support building with the opportunity to expand.

"Any time you have new facilities, it's always going to help with the recruiting with different athletes," Price-Smith said. "There's always that unknown factor, but I think you have facilities that you can come in and compare with other universities, and it will make it a little bit easier."

Practicing at McAndrew Stadium, a 70-year-old-plus football stadium that was torn down last year, the Saluki women finished ninth at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2010. They tied for 29th place this year behind two top-eight finishes by junior Jeneva McCall. The men had two second team All-Americans and finished second in the Missouri Valley Conference at both the indoor and outdoor championships.

The new track, with a state-of-the-art, full-depth polyurethane synthetic surface from Beynon Sports Surfaces called BSS 2000, will surround a multi-event synthetic turf infield. Oregon, which hosted the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in 2008, Clemson, Auburn, Illinois, Alabama and current men's and women's national champions Texas A&M currently use a Benyon surface.

New asphalt, which the new track will sit on top of, is expected to start being constructed in the next two weeks, senior associate athletic director Jason King said. When the new infield is completed, it will be shared by student recreation leagues, King said, and will have the ability to be lined up for football or soccer. The locker room building will have the ability to be extended to make room for an additional locker room, presumably for a women's soccer squad if and/or when SIU attempts to add a sport.

Even without the expansion, the facility could still have some ‘wow' factor, SIU Athletic Director Mario Moccia said.

"With the money that's been allocated with that, and with the locker rooms, I would say it's going to be one of the best in the Midwest," Moccia said. "Everybody is anxious, and looking forward to seeing it."

SIU is one of three schools in the MVC that does not currently offer women's soccer. Wichita State and Bradley are the other two. The Valley's current men's soccer teams are Bradley, Creighton, Drake, Evansville, Eastern Illinois, Central Arkansas, Missouri State and SIU-Edwardsville.

Designers of the new track facility, which will jut up against the left-field wall of Abe Martin Field, don't expect flooding to be as much of an issue as it is there. Price-Smith has two photos of the architects' renderings of the new facility in her office to show off. Neither have sandbags in them, of course, and King hopes to keep it that way when the new facility comes to life.

"If we would have laid the track on the earth that was there, that's very low, but we built it up four feet," King said. "I don't really have any concerns of it flooding now."

todd.hefferman@thesouthern.com (The Southern.Com)