Thomas Field and the rest on the Trusler Sports Complaex will be shared with the EHS baseball team for the rest of the season. The decision will benefit both ESU and EHS by reducing costs of maintaining their own facilities with their funds alone./PHOTO BY KELLEN JENKINS

The Emporia State athletics department and Emporia High School athletics have recently agreed to share the Trusler Complex.

According to ESU Athletic Director Kent Weiser, both schools have had a history of the cooperative use of each other’s facilities.

“Emporia State and Emporia High have always had a very solid and strong relationship with our athletic programs as far as sharing facilities,” Weiser said.

For several years, EHS has used ESU’s facilities.

“Emporia High School uses Welch Stadium for their football and track meets,” Weiser said. “They were a major part of helping fund the artificial surface on Jones Field.”

Although both schools are cooperative, the use of all facilities is not free for EHS.

“They pay the hard costs like electricity bills and upkeep,” Weiser said. “As far as their use of the Trusler Complex, there are really no extra expenses for ESU because we will have our maintenance staff mow the grass, which they do anyway. Emporia High school is responsible for all of the other field maintenance.”

According to Weiser, Emporia High is responsible for using dry agents on the infield, striping the infield and providing their own bases.

Britton Hart, athletic director for Emporia High, said the use of the facilities will be a great improvement from the school’s previous arrangements.

“It is a great deal for them because it is a much nicer facility than using Whittier Park because it was not as nice for fans or student athletes in comparison to Trusler,” Hart said.

Although both schools have a good rapport with each other, scheduling conflicts will always be an issue.

“The only conflict we have this year is when they have a contest we will only have one field to practice on, which really is not bad because we have a couple batting cages, a couple pitching mounds and a large outfield,” Hart said.

EHS is not the only school that will benefit from these arrangements. According to Weiser, EHS also allows ESU’s tennis team to use their courts.

“The high school has been terrific with letting us use their tennis courts,” Weiser said. “They have got a great tennis complex with 12 courts and when we have dual meets with both men and women it allows us to go to a quality facility and play all the matches at once.”

According to ESU tennis player Andrew Shipp, the larger facility is a necessity when it comes to hosting matches.

“It is mostly for matches where we need more courts than our courts supply,” Shipp said.

Weiser said he feels the alliance is good for the community.

“We share facilities with the city of Emporia, Emporia High School and Emporia State,” Weiser said. “We can each end up with a very nice facility and share rather than each having smaller facilities.”

Doug Irby/The Bulletin

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Workers brave the cold Tuesday afternoon at the Trusler Sports Complex to continue work on the installation of RamTurf artificial playing surface in the infield of Glennen Field. The renovation was made possible in part by donations and are scheduled to be done before the start of the 2009 baseball season. Andrew Dorpinghaus/The Bulletin

Trusler Sports Complex is being renovated with the help of three large donations. One of the three donors wants to remain anonymous.

According to Shane Shively, associated director for development, there will be three stages to the renovation. The first one is ram turf, a man-made permanent turf that was made available to Emporia through the Trusler foundation and will be put into the stadium. The installation is halfway done and could take up to 22 days total.

“The Trusler foundation has been very supportive of this baseball program and has been very instrumental at what we do,” said Bob Fornelli, head baseball coach.

The second stage is the new score boards that will be installed shortly after the season starts for both softball and baseball. The score boards were donated by Bill and Alowa Preston.

“The Preston’s are both retired faculty that worked at ESU for years,” Shively said. “Once Bill Preston passed away they decided for half of the money to go to the new score boards and the other half will probably go towards the renovation of the Memorial Union.”

The third phase, which has not been given an exact timeline, is the installation of a new heated batting facility with ram turf.

“All of these renovations are huge for our program,” Shively said. “We will get an opportunity to play even if it is raining or not raining. It won’t be us five hours before the game sifting off water or snow. Now we can get there and get out there with out having to deal with the field.”

Along with all the new facilities, the renovation will allow to the baseball program save money.

“We also are going to save a lot of money,” Shively said. “We aren’t going to need the dirt or chalk or anything that we used to use because of the new turf.”

The Trusler Sports Complex renovation is underway with construction and a finishing date has yet to be determined.

Cristian Echeverria/The Bulletin

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