Web update: Prentiss Field renovations not completed by spring season

Elizabeth Pacheco Senior Editor

For Vassar’s spring athletes, the opportunity to play on their own “field of dreams” remains just out of reach. Last Wednesday, Feb. 27, Director of Athletics and Physical Education Sharon Beverly began meeting with the lacrosse, baseball and track teams to deliver the disappointing news that the Prentiss Field renovations will not likely be completed for the 2008 spring season.

The complex, which will consist of a lighted turf field with an eight-lane track, a press box, two grass fields (one for field hockey and the other to be shared by soccer and lacrosse), a baseball diamond and a baseball practice field, was originally slated to be ready by Sept. 1, 2007.

“I don’t think student athletes are upset about the project delays or the hold-ups that are out of the Athletic Department’s hand,” said Student Athlete Advisory Committee President Chrissy Lewis ’08. “What I think most student athletes are upset about are the promises that were made and the expectations that were made, and then can’t be kept.”

The project has been in the making since 2001 and was announced by former Vassar President Fran Fergusson at the Spring 2006 Athletics Banquet, directly before she stepped down as president. A series of construction-related delays have prevented the field’s completion and substantially lengthened the initial timeline.

According to Athletics Department Representative for the project and Head Men’s Soccer Coach Andy Jennings, the certificate of occupancy, will only be given by the Town of Poughkeepsie Town Planning Board after all construction is finished. Without this certificate Vassar is not permitted to hold any competitions that fans could attend. Completing the construction means building and completing the “baseball dugouts, building a storage facility that will hold the lights and press box (for baseball), reworking the press boxes and their foundations on the turf and soccer/lacrosse grass field,” said Jennings.

Beverly added that the Town is also requiring that the College build an additional bathroom to accommodate spectators. The new stadium is able to seat 600 fans and the current bathroom facilities in the Weinberg Field Sports Pavilion are insufficient to accommodate this number.

In the meantime, the Town has granted Vassar a temporary permit to allow athletes to practice on the fields and track.

As spring athletes wait for their home fields to be finished, the baseball team will play their home competitions at Marist College, while the lacrosse teams will play on Vassar’s grass fields across from the new complex or at Dietz Stadium in Kingston, N.Y., if the weather does not improve.

“We’re very disappointed with the way work on the fields has not progressed,” said Beverly. “We have tried everything to make this happen as quickly as possible…[but] the circumstances are out of our control.”

Previous coverage of the Prentiss Field construction:
http://misc.vassar.edu/archives/2006/11/field_of_dreams.html