For years now, the Wabash baseball and soccer programs have sat in the shadows of Mud Hollow while seemingly every other program enjoys the perks of the state-of-the-art Allen Center. Finally, plans have been made for new soccer and baseball stadiums, which will give a boost to two programs who have struggled as of late.
The soccer and baseball teams have so much more to gain than just greener grass to play on, however. Namely, it will give the coaches something nice and shiny to show to recruits. And any coach will tell you that more talent means more wins. And more wins makes everyone more happy.
“This will give us something to showcase recruits,” said Head Soccer Coach Roberto Giannini. “We’ll actually be able to take recruits out (to Mud Hollow), which will be great. Right now, we don’t even take them out there.”
If any program needs something to show recruits, it’s soccer. Giannini has had a rough start at Wabash, going just xxxx in his first two years. It’s fantastic to see that the school will not be bailing out on Giannini and the soccer program. Instead, they are going to give them a big ‘ol pat on the back in the form of new facilities. And if Giannini can bring in solid recruits, that pat on the back could turn into an all-out push into new levels of success.
Not only will these new facilities help land future players, it will also give a boost to the current ones. This move shows that the college supports all its programs, even “the little guys” stuck way in the back of campus.
“I think it’s important when you’re a student athlete that the college gives you as much as the other programs,” Giannini said. “This should be a booster for self-confidence in not just the players, but everyone associated with sports at Wabash.”
The plan also calls for new football practice fields, Field Turf for the football stadium and possibly lights at the soccer stadium which could be used for night games and intramural sports. But the one thing Giannini stressed was the plan to install Field Turf in the soccer stadium as well, which he said were not necessarily official.
“We really need artificial turf so we don’t ruin our field when we practice on it and so we can still play in bad weather,” Giannini said.
Giannini seemed scared that the whole “Field Turf” thing would not end up happening. And why shouldn’t he be? If some money falls through, as is often the case in strategic plans such as this, who would you expect to get the short end of the stick? Soccer or football?
If I need to answer that, you clearly haven’t been at Wabash more than a week.
But if the school is serious about showing its support to the soccer program, they cannot come up short in this case. If the football team gets Field Turf and new practice fields while the soccer team gets a nice new field that they’ll ruin in a month, what will that say to the soccer program?
We all know football brings in the big dollars, but if you are going to show a program you support it, you can’t short-change them in the end. It defeats the whole purpose of the renovations in the first place.
I don’t know how warranted Giannini’s concerns are and whether or not the school will be able to come through on the full plan. But they’d better. This may be a football school, but that doesn’t mean we can’t show a little love for other guys- they’re working just as hard.