Gift brings SFU softball team home
Mike Renney, 604.306.3454; mrenney@sfu.ca
Virginia Hasselfield, Director, Leadership Giving, 604.813.6409; vhasself@sfu.ca
PAMR, 778.782.3210
Note: a sod-turning ceremony is planned for Thursday, July 30 at 1 p.m. at the field located to the east of the Whitecaps training facility. Media are welcome. Refreshments available. An artist rendering of the new field is available at 778.782.3210.
Simon Fraser University’s women’s softball team will soon have a field to call home, thanks to a gift – and challenge - from the Keith and Betty Beedie Foundation.
The announcement comes on the heels of SFU’s recent acceptance into the NCAA.
After 20 years without a home field, the team will “reap enormous benefits” from a new collegiate-competitive facility, says coach Mike Renney.
“Not only will this give us a first-class training facility, we’ll be able to play in front of a home crowd here at SFU for the first time since our inception,” says Renney, team coach for the past 17 years.
The project is being driven by SFU Athletic’s Bring Our Teams Home campaign and funded by a $500,000 gift from the Keith and Betty Beedie Foundation, which has also launched a challenge to match dollar for dollar any donations towards the field construction, up to another $250,000.
“We’re happy that these funds will be used for a new NCAA home for SFU women’s softball team,” says Keith Beedie, who coached kids' softball in Burnaby for nearly 30 years. “Our involvement at SFU began with an endowment, which has helped young women softball players, and since then our connection has grown. We’re committed to getting this NCAA field built.”
The highly-anticipated field, to be named in honour of the donors, will occupy the site of the team’s current practice field, located adjacent to the Whitecaps training facility (east side) at the west end of the Burnaby campus.
It will be well suited for hosting visiting NCAA teams from across the U.S., Renney notes.
"Simon Fraser University and the Department of Athletics are extremely appreciative of the generosity shown by the Beedie family,” says David Murphy, SFU athletics director. “The Beedies are allowing us to expedite our ‘bringing our teams back home’ program and sharing top competition with the campus and local community.”
Drainage problems have left the practice field unusable from mid-October to mid-April (season play begins in February). And while Surrey’s Softball City has been available as a home field for games, schedule changes forced them to look elsewhere for fields last season.
Work on the new field will include laying a new sand base with a state-of-the-art drainage, replacing the sod and backstop and adding lights as well as a scoreboard.
"SFU has a long tradition of excellence in athletics. Our women's
softball teams have done well in highly competitive leagues, and
individual players have gone on to the national teams. New training
facilities will help the team maintain their standard of excellence,
and also provide opportunities for other young athletes," says Jon Driver, VP Academic.
Established in 1990, SFU’s softball program is considered one of the top university softball programs in North America.
The team has won three national championships (1999, 2003 and 2005) and made a dozen national championship appearances, 10 of them, competing in the quarter-finals. The team has also produced 11 Olympians, 33 All-American athletes and dozens of outstanding graduates.
The Keith and Betty Beedie Foundation also provides an annual tuition assistance endowment for players on the SFU softball team. Recipient Melanie Matthews went on to represent Canada at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
SFU Athletics’ fundraising campaign has also provided for upgrades to the main soccer/football field that will see the SFU football team play on Terry Fox Field for the first time this fall.
-30-