Alumni Field

Alumni Field is the area behind the Dow Physical Education and Recreation Center that includes Dempsey Field (softball), Joranko Field (baseball), the competition soccer field, practice fields for the soccer and football teams and the British Eighth marching band, and a field for intramural activities.

The summer of 2003 was a busy time at Alumni Field, as an underground irrigation system was installed to cover the entire area and the soccer competition field was completely renovated.

Albion’s soccer programs have exploded in interest in recent years. The women’s team, the three-time Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion, is beginning a junior varsity squad this fall as the Britons are scheduled to welcome 39 student-athletes when training camp begins in August. The men’s team, which has shown steady improvement in Jerry Block’s three-year tenure as head coach, has 31 student-athletes on its preseason roster.

The field the soccer teams compete on is now catching up to the level of interest. According to men’s head coach Jerry Block, the uneven conditions brought down the level of play.

“It was a decent pitch, but it was middle of the pack in our league,” Block explained. “It was tough to play the ball out of the back on the ground because there was a lot of unevenness.

“The (renovated) field will be fantastic and it is the last key piece to building a program that will be competitive year in and year out,” Block added.

With the programs on a solid competitive foundation, Albion alumnus David Johnson ’70 made a significant gift toward improving the field. Johnson was selected as the most improved player of the 1969 men’s soccer team that posted an impressive 8-3 record and has been enshrined in Albion’s Athletic Hall of Fame. The ’69 men’s soccer team has a history of supporting the current program, raising funds for the current scoreboard at the field which was erected during the Briton Athletic Drive.

Two of Johnson’s daughters, Stephanie Fleming ’97 and Andrea 2000, also graduated from Albion. Andrea was a letter winner in the Britons’ women’s soccer program.

Johnson’s support allowed Albion College grounds supervisor Mark Frever to come up with a plan that would ease the wear and tear on the turf by expanding the amount of area around the field allowing for options to move the playing area with field paint.

The soccer competition field was built up like a platform, and there was an especially sharp drop just past the touch line on the east end of the field. Using laser leveling, the grade on the field has been reduced to less than one percent and utilities have been moved back to give Frever more land to work with which will allow the grounds crew different positions for the field to lie during the season.

“I proposed if we were to gain the unused ground to the east (a 60-foot path), we would be able to move the soccer field with paint,” Frever said. “Now we will have two solid field positions to the east and west, and one to the south.”

The renovation of the soccer field began May 8 with the application of an agent to kill the current grass. A week later, the utility pole that provides electricity to the scorers’ table was moved 12 feet to the north. Crews began to cut into the topsoil May 17, and the scoreboard on the northeast corner of the field was moved 50 feet back (almost making it back-to-back with the Joranko Field scoreboard) May 18. Leveling of the field started May 21. Crews were to begin laying the new grass seed June 2, allowing for three months until the first game Sept. 7, as the Briton women host John Carroll (Ohio) University.

During the excavation process, crews found some interesting artifacts in addition to learning why it was difficult to grow grass under the field’s old configuration.

“When we took the top soil off, we found some areas we as thin as three inches and as deep as two feet. It was inconsistent for growing,” Frever said. “We also uncovered a softball mound and home plate.”

The renovated field will be built on top of a subsurface that features five to eight inches of a mixture of sand and gravel and six inches of top soil.

Another improvement at Alumni Field is the installation of a gravel path between the soccer competition and practice fields that will allow for easier traffic to the football practice fields in the southeast corner.

Updated August 02, 2006 by Albion College Sports Information