Sports
B1
Appeal Tribune, www.silvertonappeal.com
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Corban's Jessie Isham at the NAIA Softball World Series in Clermont, Florida. DOUG PFEILER/CORBAN ATHLETICS
Corban launches $6 million
athletic fundraising project
GARY HOROWITZ
SALEM STATESMAN JOURNAL
USA TODAY NETWORK
If all goes according to plan, the ath-
letic facilities at Corban University will
have a major upgrade in place for the
2019-20 school year.
The private Christian university in
Salem has announced a $6 million two-
phase project that will include a stadium
for soccer and track, a new FieldTurf
softball field, and a FieldTurf practice
field for intramural sports. The new fa-
cilities will include lights.
The largest athletic facilities project
in school history meets several needs for
Corban.
Corban’s 70-plus member men’s and
women’s track program does not have an
on-campus facility on which to train, and
the men’s and women’s soccer teams
play their home games off campus, typi-
cally at the Capital Futbol Club on State
Street.
Corban secured $1.3 million in finan-
cial commitments the past two months
before the school announced officially
last week that it is raising money that
will go toward funding a state-of-the-art
athletic complex on campus.
“Right now we’re just trying to meet
the needs that we have,” fifth-year Cor-
ban athletic director Greg Eide said. “We
don’t have a track, and we don’t have ade-
quate facilities for soccer, track, softball
and intramurals.”
The Warriors don’t have an adequate
on-campus facility for baseball either,
and the program has a partnership with
the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes to play their
home games at Volcanoes Stadium in
Keizer. An all-weather turf baseball field
is part of a Future Phase of the Univer-
sity master plan.
The main problem for the soccer,
baseball and softball programs is drain-
age issues on fields that are located on
the flattest and lowest areas of campus.
FieldTurf would alleviate those con-
cerns.
Corban, which competes in the Cas-
cade Collegiate Conference of NAIA, has
13 sports – seven women’s sports and six
men’s sports — with more than 300 ath-
letes.
The school is currently second in the
CCC all-sports trophy competition, and
19th in the NAIA Learfield Directors’
Cup standings that recognizes top athlet-
ic programs in NAIA. Both rankings are
the highest in school history.
The Warriors have enjoyed consider-
able athletic success across the board in
recent years.
The softball team reached the NAIA
World Series Championship Game in
June and finished No. 2 in the final rank-
ings; the volleyball team advanced to the
quarterfinals of the NAIA Volleyball
Championship this month; the men’s soc-
cer team advanced to the NAIA National
Tournament in November for a fifth con-
secutive year; the men's basketball team
won the CCC Tournament last season and
participated in the NAIA National Cham-
pionships; and the women’s cross coun-
try team finished 16th nationally this
fall.
The stadium for soccer and track,
Master plan for Corban University athletic complex. CORBAN ATHLETICS
Corban University athletic director Greg Eide hopes the new athletic complex will be ready for
the 2019-20 school year. GARY HOROWITZ/STATESMAN JOURNAL
which is part of Phase One, will have
seating for approximately 1,000 people.
“It’s really exciting. It means a lot to
the school,” men’s soccer coach Aaron
Lewis said. “It will increase the number
of players on our teams. It’s gonna help
us in terms of practice times. It’s gonna
help us in recruiting and give a boost to
the overall atmosphere of games.”
Phase Two will include the softball
field and intramural practice field.
Having the new athletic complex on
campus should benefit Corban athletics
and the school’s fan base. No more travel
for practices and home games.
“I think you’re gonna get more stu-
dents at Corban watching games and
more excited about all of the athletic pro-
grams because everything is right there,
walking distance,” softball coach Abigail
Farler said.
Eide said groundbreaking won't begin
until the project is fully funded. The goal
is to raise the entire $6 million by sum-
mer of 2019 "so we can start construc-
tion.”
“We really look at this as not only help-
ing meet our needs, but will meet the
needs of the Salem community and the
greater Mid-Willamette Valley because
we’d like to make these (facilities) avail-
able to other schools,” Eide said, adding,
“Down the road we’d like to think we
could host (high school) state track and
field meets, and soccer and softball
championships.”
Corban would also be able to host CCC
tournaments and NAIA national play-
offs.
In addition to the baseball field, an
Events Center is part of a Future Phase
that would include a new competition
gym for volleyball and men’s and wom-
en’s basketball, and put the school in po-
sition to host tournaments.
The Events Center will be built
around C.E. Jeffers Sports Center, and
the existing court would become a sec-
ondary court used primarily for prac-
tices and intramurals.
Corban has an enrollment of about
1,000 students with nearly a third of the
student body participating on sports
teams. Eide said the new athletic com-
plex could lead to the addition of other
sports, like wrestling and women’s la-
crosse.
“It helps strengthen the whole busi-
ness model when we can have adequate
facilities that allow us to not only meet
the current needs, but future needs of
programs we might want to add,” said
Eide, who oversaw Scio High School get-
ting turf football, baseball and softball
fields in his one year as the school's ath-
letic director.
“This would really help set up the col-
lege for generations. It would be a game
changer.”
Note: For additional information or to
be part of Corban’s athletic complex
fundraising effort, contact Greg Eide at
geide@corban.edu or 503-375-7021.
ghorowitz@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/ghorowitz