"Just as UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey completed one project on Thursday, she announced plans for another one that she hopes will aid Coach Larry Coker in building his fledgling football program.

Hickey said UTSA will build an on-campus football practice field that will serve as a “transitional” training site for the Roadrunners until fundraising can be completed for a new facility at Park West.

“We have a transitional plan for this next year,” Hickey said. ”When we move the track team to the new facility (at Park West) at the end of May, we’re going to tear up where the current track is (on campus), collaborating with recreation services, and we’re going to build a practice football field on campus.”

Hickey made her comments at City Hall, where City Council approved an agreement for the Roadrunners to play games downtown at the Alamodome through 2035.

Since the Roadrunners started training as a team in 2010, they have been practicing off campus at Farris Stadium, a Northside School District property located less than five miles west of UTSA on Loop 1604.

The on-campus transitional facility would allow the Roadrunners to avoid traveling to and from Farris.

She said lockers will be built in an equipment-meeting room in a building located under coaches’ office, which are to the north of and adjacent to the Convocation Center.

The practice field will be a short walk from the coaches’ offices and the locker area.

Hickey said she hopes to have the project started next summer and completed in time for the start of fall football camp in August.

“So we’re very excited about that,” she said.

Hickey said that if the project isn’t completed by August, then she is hopeul that the team could continue to practice at Farris. UTSA has had conversations with Northside on that contingency.

“If the project doesn’t get done by the middle or the first of August,” she said, “we may need the month of September next year (at Farris). But our objective is to have everything ready by August practice.”

The long-term goal is to build an athletics complex at the university-owned Park West property."

That sounds like an improvement over current facilities?

(09-06-2012 10:05 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  That sounds like an improvement over current facilities?

Not so much an improvement, just allows us to stop using Farris and start practicing on-campus.

(09-06-2012 10:27 PM)DarrellEW Wrote:  

(09-06-2012 10:05 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  That sounds like an improvement over current facilities?

Not so much an improvement, just allows us to stop using Farris and start practicing on-campus.

Is it going to be a grass field? I would imagine it would be better to practice on grass?

(09-07-2012 03:28 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  

(09-06-2012 10:27 PM)DarrellEW Wrote:  

(09-06-2012 10:05 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  That sounds like an improvement over current facilities?

Not so much an improvement, just allows us to stop using Farris and start practicing on-campus.

Is it going to be a grass field? I would imagine it would be better to practice on grass?

From what I've heard (though don't quote me on this), this "transitional" practice field will be FieldTurf, a type of artificial turf that is similar to what they have at the Alamodome.

(09-07-2012 03:28 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  

(09-06-2012 10:27 PM)DarrellEW Wrote:  

(09-06-2012 10:05 PM)jarmzet Wrote:  That sounds like an improvement over current facilities?

Not so much an improvement, just allows us to stop using Farris and start practicing on-campus.

Is it going to be a grass field? I would imagine it would be better to practice on grass?

This field is going to be artificial, which makes sense with at least half of our games every year being played on artificial turf.

I believe that the eventual plan for the practice fields at Park West has one artificial and one grass, so we can get used to whatever surface we're playing on any given week.