Bower Field bowing out

Bower Field - home to club sports such as rugby, lacrosse, ultimate Frisbee and soccer - will be closing at the beginning of May to make way for the construction of Penn Park, an expansion of the current recreational and athletic facilities east of campus.

The unveiling of Penn Park, a $36 million project, is currently slated for Spring 2011, according to Director of Athletic Facilities and Operations Dave Bryan.

As the commencement of campus construction on the new park nears, some athletes are concerned about the future of their space, especially those students that play and practice on Bower Field.

Bryan, however, reassures that the solution to closed fields rests in attention to scheduling.

"Moving forward, we've got to be very creative in how all of our facilities - recreational, intercollegiate athletics, structured sport - are working on a schedule," Bryan said. "We will have to step outside the box here to come up with some creative scheduling templates."

Ryan Buries, the associate director of Structured Sport in the Department of Recreation, explained that the department informed all club sports of the closing over a year ago and advised the teams to "begin searching for alternative practice and competition spaces."

However, that does not mean that club teams will find themselves scrambling for coveted spots on Hill Field or on the field between 40th Street and Rodin College House.

Bryan assured that club sports will not be left unaided in the search for appropriate practice space.

He said that the Department of Recreation intends to work closely with the Athletic Department to integrate club practices into the schedules for Franklin Field and B field (located next to Rhodes Field).

"We will do the best we can to accommodate replacing those schedules with suitable alternatives," Bryan said.

The Department of Recreation may receive help from the Undergraduate Assembly, which has also begun exploring alternative space solutions.

College junior and President of Women's Rugby Andrea Anastasi said that representatives from various club teams that use Bower Field have been working to coordinate plans at the monthly meetings of the Sports Club Council, the umbrella group for club sports on campus.

Men's Rugby also expressed concern at the shrinking playing space. With the recent formation of the Ivy League Rugby Union, Engineering junior and Men's Rugby President Barzin Nabet worries that the lack of on-campus playing sites may diminish Penn's status as an elite team.

Although the team has traditionally competed in Fairmount Park - a large park complex across the Schuylkill River - it intends to request available on-campus practice spaces next fall.

Many teams, however, recognized the future advantages of Penn Park, albeit several seasons down the road.

"Overall, it's going to be difficult," Nabet said. "But we'll come out much better off in future years."

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