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Ath­let­ics Con­struc­tion Un­der­way

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A brand-new turf field for the wom­en’s lacrosse team, men’s lacrosse team and soft­ball team is part of the fu­ture at Maryville. Con­struc­tion on Maryville Uni­ver­si­ty’s cam­pus off of Con­way road has brought the at­ten­tion of many fel­low Saints. 

An ex­panded foot­print for the ath­let­ics de­part­ment is in the works at Maryville Uni­ver­sity. Set to be com­pleted in Aug., a brand-new turf lacrosse field and turf soft­ball field will sit on Maryville’s cam­pus off of Con­way road. 

The plan in­cludes at least four ten­nis courts, six locker rooms and ad­di­tional of­fice space for the ath­letic de­part­ment and coach­ing staff.

The lock­ers will pro­vide stor­age space for all sports gear. The fields are to be com­pleted for fall ball “but, it de­pends on Mother Na­ture,” said Lon­nie Folks, Di­rec­tor of Ath­let­ics and Recre­ation at Maryville Uni­ver­sity.

“It’s been some­thing that’s been in the works for a while and I’m thrilled to see it be­ing done,” said Folks. Folks is a St. Louis na­tive and Maryville grad­u­ate him­self. He stud­ied busi­ness man­age­ment at the uni­ver­sity and rose to his cur­rent ti­tle of Di­rec­tor of Ath­let­ics and Recre­ation from his pre­vi­ous as­sis­tant po­si­tion and head coach of wom­en’s soc­cer, bas­ket­ball, and soft­ball. 

He also served as sports in­for­ma­tion di­rec­tor at the uni­ver­sity. As a for­mer stu­dent ath­lete and mem­ber of the Maryville ath­let­ics hall of fame, he has an award named af­ter him­self, hon­or­ing “for­mer stu­dent-ath­letes, coaches or ad­min­is­tra­tors who ex­em­plify good spirit, sports­man­ship, stew­ard­ship and ser­vice.”

The new fa­cil­i­ties will en­hance the op­por­tu­ni­ties for Maryville ath­let­ics and teams and will help to re­lieve ten­sion from shar­ing lock­ers space and fa­cil­i­ties dur­ing sports sea­sons. 

Folks has a “global vi­sion” about the pro­ject and be­lieve the pro­ject “will show the uni­ver­si­ty’s con­tin­ued sup­port of in­ter­col­le­giate ath­let­ics as we ex­pect these to be first class fa­cil­i­ties with all the ameni­ties nec­es­sary for qual­ity pro­grams.”

Fol­low the Ath­let­ics De­part­ment on Twit­ter to keep up with the Maryville Saints ath­let­ics and sport­ing events. 

Weber field. Photo courtesy of Maryville University Twitter.
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