Baseball Performance Development Center scheduled to open in January 2017
Construction of the new Baseball Performance Development Center on the northeast side of Theunissen Stadium is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of the spring semester of 2017.
The $2 million complex was entirely funded through donations raised by University Athletics, said Linda Slater, director of plant engineering and planning.
Head baseball coach Steve Jaksa said the facility will benefit his program by allowing extra training during the off-season.
"It's set up for a lot of individual workouts," he said. "It will benefit us from a hitting standpoint and it will give our pitchers a chance to work on their moves with a mound that's the same as our game mound. It will give us the opportunity to get in there at times that we might not be able to get in somewhere else."
Director of Athletics Dave Heeke said the facility will help alleviate a full practice schedule in the Indoor Athletic Complex and provide a space for the baseball program to host instructional high school and youth baseball camps.
Jaksa, McKinstry, pitching prospect respond to news of $1 million donation
A state of the art indoor baseball training facility coming to Theunissen Stadium became a legitimate possibility, Monday.
Central Michigan University’s athletic department announced an anonymous donor gifted $500,000 for the Performance Development Center, potentially a 7,000 to 7,500 square-foot, all turf complex adjacent to the team’s clubhouse.
"It will begin to alleviate our space crunch on the (IAC) turf bay," he said. "With the addition of more programs and certainly the weather issues we have here, we have very limited indoor space. That will allow us some flexibility in scheduling.
"Walls are going up. We seem to be at a good standing and are moving ahead in a positive way."
The facility was made possible by a $500,000 anonymous matching donation announced on Sep. 28, 2015. The donor additionally pledged another $500,000 to match other donations to the facility dollar-for-dollar.
The donation is the largest monetary commitment in the program's history and one of the largest in athletic department history, according to CMU athletics.
"To be successful, you have to have some people step forward," Jaksa said. "By getting those lead gifts, we were able to get the momentum so that we could start filtering in different amounts of money under those gifts to reach our goal."
Left-handed high school pitching prospect Sam Goodman visited the Chippewas’ Skill Day practice in September 2015. The Minnesota native said it's appealing to a recruit to see a university and fan base invest in its team.
“It’s good to know (CMU) is going in the right direction and doing good things,” Goodman said. “(CMU) being a winning program makes you want to come. Giving players a place to work out and train and hit is big time. When you’re playing 12 months a year, it makes a big difference.”
