WKU and Bowling Green community members gathered around the future Hilltopper Fieldhouse Tuesday afternoon to sign the facility’s final beam before it was placed.
The fieldhouse, situated between Houchens Industries L. T. Smith Stadium and Nick Denes Field, will be a joint practice facility for football and baseball, as well as a home for student organizations and programs outside of athletics.
Some signers stayed to hear speeches from WKU President Timothy Caboni and Jennifer Kinsey, general manager of Reeves Young, the construction company contracted to build Hilltopper Fieldhouse.
“A great day for our community, a great day of celebration for all of the folks in planning, design, and construction that have worked hard on this,” Caboni said at a press conference after the event.
WKU E-sports, which previously practiced in McCormack Hall, will also receive a new joint practice facility with WKU Forensics, which practiced in a building across from Kelly Thompson Hall. The fieldhouse will also host the Big Red Marching Band, which previously rehearsed on the South Lawn.
“One of our goals with this project was to create a space for all of our really competitive student organizations to have a place to practice,” Caboni said in a press conference after the event. “[The Big Red Marching Band] will have a permanent home so they can practice without having to be disrupted by the rain or heat.”
WKU sophomore e-sports player Rylee Mullins said the facility will “hopefully” give e-sports the ability to add new teams to the program.
“Over the last few years, WKU E-sports went from a closet-sized room to a classroom-sized room. And now, we’re actually going to have individual spaces for each of our teams,” Mullins told the Herald. “With all of this opportunity rolling in, we hope it sets a good foundation for our future teams.”
Construction is expected to end in late 2025, meaning teams will utilize the facility starting in the 2025-2026 school year.
“This will have a generational impact,” said WKU Athletics Director Todd Stewart at the press conference. “Once it’s completed, it will serve as the home for many different people, it will enable us to recruit at a higher level, it will enable us to develop athletes at a higher level.”
The Fieldhouse project, which began construction in the fall of 2023, is expected to begin work on the exterior within a few weeks, according to Kinsey.
“You’re really going to start seeing a lot of changes,” Kinsey said at the press conference. “Once the exterior envelope and skin comes together, it’ll just fly.”
Sports Reporter Nathan Mueller can be reached at [email protected]
