As education at all levels continues to rebound from a global pandemic, one local institution and its athletic department wants to push for renovation, renaissance and rebirth in west Kentucky.
It’s Murray State University, and in a Tuesday update to the Cadiz Rotary Club, MSU Athletic Director Kevin Saal gave a brief nod to what could soon be a fully-revealed athletic facilities master plan, quickly touched on the recent executive order from Gov. Andy Beshear regarding name/image/likeness rules at universities, and the developing talks around possible conference expansion.
Now heading into his third season at the helm, Saal’s first 13 months of his tenure at MSU was spent mostly as a quartermaster — working alongside his staff analyzing major needs for campus upgrades.
It’ll take years to implement everything, but the plan is a kernel. Saal said a new HVAC unit is coming for Racer Arena — which is the second-largest volleyball facility in the country — and a winter-ready training facility for men’s and women’s golf isn’t far behind inside Roy Stewart Stadium.
Other projects — lights and bleachers at Cutchin Field for women’s soccer, a student-athlete facility between Roy Stewart Stadium and the CFSB Center, dugout bathrooms for baseball and softball at Racer and Reagan fields, and a lower-bowl revamp inside the CFSB Center — are just some of the many potential long-term projects part of the scope.
Name/Image/Likeness legislation continues to sweep the country, and already student-athletes from across the nation have been soliciting for financial support on the rights to publicity.
Clearly in its infancy, however, Saal noted the biggest step is the first — beginning with Beshear’s order that goes into effect on July 1.
Also in the last nine months, MSU athletics also took an external hit not involved with COVID-19, when officials from Jacksonville State and Eastern Kentucky University both announced their departure from the Ohio Valley Conference to the Atlantic Sun.
From the casual eye, this conference realignment seems inconsequential, as the OVC remains stout in multiple Division I sports fields — particularly men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and football.
But the Gamecocks and Colonels each brought considerable clout to the conference in their own way, and EKU was a founding member of the OVC alongside MSU and Western Kentucky in 1948, and this move signifies how times change.
In February, OVC officials detailed the hiring of Collegiate Sports Associates with plans for “strategic growth, as it contemplates future membership expansion.”
Though those conversations have been under lock-and-key for months, Saal ascertains the league’s health may not be a concern.
One of the more immediate and noticeable improvements to Murray State’s athletic campus is the return of in-person basketball camps for men’s coach Matt McMahon and women’s coach Rechelle Turner, in which high school teams convened for elite camps, an local youths rolled up for skills challenges.
Last summer, the CFSB Center was dormant due to COVID-19 protocols, so this summer has brought a welcome change of pace.
In a rapid-fire, six-minute discussion of facilities upgrades, Saal also described several accoutrement that could very well shape the future of Murray State Athletics.
And some of them are of utmost priority.
For more information on current and future athletic endeavors at MSU, visit goracers.com.
