As construction on the site of the new softball stadium continues, the question of where Harding’s rugby team will play their home matches has yet to be answered, according to next year’s rugby captain, junior Derek Mountford.
The location of the new stadium, just west of the baseball stadium on the corner by the Beebe-Capps entrance to Harding, has served as the long-time playing field for the rugby team. Mountford said last semester the team was informed that they needed to begin looking for a new place to host their games because the field would no longer be an option.
“Our ability to use that field was somewhat thin to begin with, as it was the soccer team’s practice field, so we used it very infrequently,” Mountford said. “It was, however, the most level field with the most grass that we had access to.”
According to freshman Brandon Chase, the team will continue to use their current practice field, which is located beyond the intramural football fields, but for practices only. Mountford said the practice field is designed to keep water off the intramural field, and for that reason most of their opponents would rather not play Harding’s team than risk injury playing on the uneven ground.
Chase said the team recently showed up for practice to find survey flags posted around the sides of a field. He said the players are hopeful the field may soon be renovated to serve as a better playing field.
The team’s hope for the area, Mountford said, is that Harding will convert the field into a multi-purpose area for all students to use, with a section in the back available for the rugby team to practice and play games.
According to Vice President and Dean of Students David Collins, the physical resource department is in the process of gathering information regarding how the area may be improved for use by club sports teams, but no official decisions have been made at this time.
Harding rugby, like the Harding lacrosse and women’s and men’s ultimate Frisbee team, is a club sport and is therefore self-funded. This school year, however, the university budgeted $10,000 for the club sports teams, which was distributed based on the number of students participating on the various teams and their overall expenses for the year, among other criteria.
Collins said the university is committed to helping Harding’s club teams continue to grow and thrive in the coming years.
“Each of our club sports teams offers students a unique opportunity to compete athletically against other universities apart from the traditional intercollegiate sports offered by our athletics department,” Collins said. “These club sports fit well within our mission at Harding as we seek ways for students to be active physically and engaged in multiple facets of campus life.”
As for the rugby team, Mountford said the team’s other options would be to play their home games somewhere off campus or at a complex in Little Rock, which would make it difficult to get student support at the games.
“Neither of those (options) are desirable at all from our perspective, but we have battled worse and if that is all we have then we will make do with it,” Mountford said.
