on Washington and Lee University's back campus, an empty field sits adjacent to Captain Dick Smith field the home of W&L baseball since 1999. Right now the empty field serves as a fairway for two disc golf holes and lawn seating during a weekend baseball doubleheader, but the field is being converted into a new softball stadium as soon as the fall of 2025 in order to support a university goal of fielding a varsity softball team. That goal was stated in the university's 2018 strategic plan. The Michael F Walsh, Director of Athletics at W&l is Jan Hathorn. She says the University is committed to building the field, but it'll be a challenge.
All of the money for us to do this has to be fundraise. So at some point, the fundraise money depending on whether it's in hand or not will also help determine the timeline.
But she says the University Development Office tasked with raising the money for the project will get it done. She uses her new spacious office and the Dutchossois athletic and Recreation Center. As an example to their ability. The building her office sits in opened in the fall of 2020 and costed almost $48 million to complete on the back campus. The new softball stadium won't be that much of a project, but it'll still be a multimillion dollar one. Hathorn says much of that cost comes out of an equity obligation to have similar amenities for both the softball and baseball fields.
We have a fantastic baseball field and a similar version of that for women in softball needs to be built which, which means that there's some amenities to the baseball field that we need to make sure are available on the softball field.
Captain Dick Smith Field home of W&L baseball cost almost $2 million to build in 1999 and includes a covered press box with two rows of seats on the inside. Towering light fixtures that allow the team to practice or play at night. bullpens on both sides that sit off the playing field, an indoor facility attached to the home dugout, and an automated camera feed behind the centerfield fence that allows viewers at home to see the games from a better view. Before the varsity team begins play half the world would like for a club team to exist
would certainly be ideal if we can do it. You know, a club team
would allow the varsity program to have a more complete roster in the first few seasons of competition before multiple recruiting classes can be brought in. But there is no current club team. Margaret McClintock who runs club and intramural sports said Who says there's one big problem
so we don't have a field. So that's a huge hurdle. Certainly we could play at Brubaker and town and use the those those kind of local fields but getting the right time getting students to be transported. All of those things are going to be create logistical hurdles to getting people excited and involved.
Hathorn says another problem they face is a numbers one
back in the day, we also had very few women who were interested there might have been a handful. So we tried to just get them together and at least you know, but it's sort of hard when there's only five, six, you know, less than 10 and less than nine.
Senior Sam Carley says she's one of a handful of students who played competitive softball in high school. She doesn't think numbers are the problem.
There are girls here that would play. And you could put up a pretty competitive team with just the girls that came here that chose not to play at other places.
She says the real problem lies with the amount of logistical work that's needed from students to make this a reality.
It's a lot to start a club team, especially a club team with the intention of becoming varsity. We don't have a field. We don't have equipment. We wouldn't have a coach. And all of those things on top of forming a team that could with any year within two years become a varsity sport. That's a lot to put on students with limited help from the university.
Hathorn says the club team route is ideal, but she makes it clear that club team or not, the varsity program will happen.
If there's a club team wonderful if there isn't we're still gonna go in this direction and we're gonna hire a coach a year before we start playing so that they can start recruiting
Hathorn feels like this is long overdue. The Old Dominion Athletic Conference where who plays has sponsored softball since 1990. Many odacc schools have been playing even before it became a note export. W&L is the only coed school in the conference to not sponsor varsity softball. There are currently 10 schools competing inside the conference and softball the 2021 division three national champion, Virginia Wesleyan University is included in those 10
We aren't offering to our students on our campus and equitable opportunity to the rest of the conference.
Hathorn was the first head coach for W&L women's soccer in 1987, just two years after the school admitted undergraduate women for the first time. She also became the first head coach for W&L women's lacrosse in 1989. So she says adding another women's sport under her watch. This time from an administrative role is a special opportunity for her. But she's quick to say that it's not about her. She says it's more important for what it means to the student athletes and the students on this campus and that she's happy that she's getting the opportunity to bring something like this to Washington and Lee. Reporting from Lexington, Virginia. I'm Jack hunter with the Rockbridge report.
