Posted on December 13, 2024

By the El Dorado News-Times

In January of 2022, South Arkansas College played its first baseball game.

Less than three years after its beginning, the program is making its biggest imprint yet.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Thursday to herald the beginning of the construction of a new stadium for the Stars, which will be located at the southwest corner of South West Avenue and West Hillsboro Street.

“It’s exciting,” South Arkansas College coach Cannon Lester said. “You get to the hear the news at the end of summer, then you get going and get busy. All of a sudden, it’s coming up. I drive past that spot every day, so I’m really excited to see some dirt or concrete or whatever might be start moving. That’s exciting.”

The stadium will be built concurrently with Howard Hall, a new student residence hall named in honor of William R. Howard of El Dorado, following a gift by Howard of more than $2 million to assist in funding the facility.

In June, Murphy Oil made a $10 million gift that launched the projects.

SouthArk has made quite a splash in its first three seasons by reaching the NJCAA Division II World Series in each of the last two years.

Players on the 2025 squad likely won’t get to play at the new facility unless they have a redshirt season due to having only two years of eligibility, but Lester said that hasn’t stopped their excitement.

“They’ll come in the office sometimes, and I’ve got the drawings sitting right there on my desk,” Lester said. “They see it and they’re like, ‘Is this it?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ You know sheepishly smiling a little bit. They’re like, ‘Man, I wish we could play on it.’ I think it’s exciting, and they know what this can bring to our team.

“They know they’re probably not going to get to play on it, but some of them jumped around like, ‘Hey, can I redshirt this year so I can play on it?’ Just kind of playing around, but they’re excited. They know what it’s going to bring. They know what it means. Even if they know they don’t get to play on it, I think deep down they know that they were a big part of making that happen. That’s exciting. I think they’ll take pride in that whenever it is here. Hopefully, we’ll have a ring ceremony for them. In a couple of years, they can come and check it out. They’ll be alumni by then, and it will be exciting for them as well.”

As for the features that are going to be a part of the stadium, Lester, ranks one as the most important is the playing surface.

“We’ve got a plan in place. We know what we want,” Lester said. “A few things off the top that I think everybody will notice is I think we’re going for all turf. There’s no upkeep, we can play on it all the time. I think it allows us to have other people play on it. It will be top of the line. The turf at the (El Dorado/Union County Recreation) Complex has been good to us, but it will be set up a little different than that. It will absorb a lot better.

“It will play a little bit different. The stuff they have now, it plays a little more true to dirt. The ball stays down a little bit more compared to this turf out here. It’s really bouncy. They’ve updated it over the years. It’s definitely going to play a little bit different. The dirt and grass will have a tad bit different thickness. The way home plate is manipulated out front so it’s not going to hit and go straight up. It’s going to stay down. It will be one of those things where it can rain three or four inches in a couple of hours, you give it 15 minutes or so and it’s like, ‘Hey boys, lets go play.'”

The Green Monster, the fabled left-field wall at Boston’s Fenway Park, is one of baseball’s most famous landmarks, and SouthArk’s stadium will have a similar feature.

“A big part of the field that might be the first thing you see when you walk in is the big 30-foot wall in left field,” Lester said. “It’s going to run from the left-field pole to left-center.

It’s going to be a monster. It’s going to play a little different than the field we play on now. The wind is going to play a big factor. In right-center, right field, it’s going to go a little bit, but it will blow in from left. I think there’s two fields in the nation that are situated in this direction. Arkansas State, which they never hit the ball out of, and Clemson, which it flies there. The Green Monster in left is going to be a big deal. It’s going to give it some character.”

A video board will be in right field.

“It’s going to big and inviting,” Lester said. “I think we’ll have a lot of fan interaction, promo videos, whatever it might be. I think that’s going to be an eye-opener.”

Lester said fans will be very close to the action on the field.

“As far as the stands go, I think we’re going to have really high nets all the way around to keep balls from going over,” Lester said. “Even though it’s a new field, it’s going to be a relatively close backstop, which is exciting for fans. I think you get to see a little more. It’s up close. You’re going to hear what’s happening on the field. It also keeps balls from getting over the net because they don’t have time to get up. I think fan interaction will be a plus.”

David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid, Okla., is home to the NJCAA Division II World Series, and Lester said an amenity there will be a part of the new facility.

“I think a really neat thing that we got from Enid’s ballpark is that we’re going to have a hospitality room,” Lester said. “It can be a meeting room and we’ll have a kitchenette there. It can be a space designed to rent out. If we have a 1 o’clock midweek, instead of having a business meeting in the office, why not come out to the game? It will have windows that can open and close. If it happens to be a cold day, we can turn the heat on or if it’s a nice day, you’ve got a view of the ballpark. Maybe get some catered food or have a birthday party there while you’re checking out a game. Enid has one and it’s a really cool feature. We’ve had to go in there a lot and wait for rain delays. We can do a lot of things with it.”

For the players, there will be locker rooms on the back of the dugouts.

“You can walk straight through the dugout to the locker room,” Lester said. “It’s going to be more of a stadium feel. It’s going to be the whole big thing. It’s exciting to finally get this thing going.”

SouthArk has shown that it can compete with the top teams in the country on the diamond, but with the construction of the stadium and Howard Hall, Lester has plenty to show recruits.

“It’s a big deal,” Lester said. “We’ll show them campus and it’s really nice. We’ll walk them toward that corner and show them where it’s going to be. The first thing when you walk into my office on my desk are the plans of it. It’s all laid out right there. It’s beautiful. They grab it, usually take a picture of it. It’s a big deal. Being in our fourth year, we’ve gotten a lot better in a lot of things. I think this is the one thing now where I think we’re close to being a top 10 team every year, if we want to take that next step of being in the pantheon of the LSU-Eunice’s and the Pearl River’s, guys like that. I think this is our big step. That’s exciting, and it definitely helps on the recruiting trail.”