Someone has to take blame for field delay
The field hockey team will again have to play its next scheduled home game at Michigan State because of delays in the construction of the new field hockey venue.
Central’s home game that was scheduled for Oct. 5 against Michigan State also has been moved to East Lansing. The Spartans are ranked No. 4 in the nation and it will now be a home game for them.
The Chippewas split their first two “home” games of the season last week.
Is having to play home games in East Lansing fair to the field hockey team?
Athletics Director Herb Deromedi doesn’t see it as a fairness issue.
“This is not a question of being fair, it’s a question of playing the games,” Deromedi said. “We have a great field hockey team and they want to play the game.”
But this is a fairness issue. CMU is a Division I-A university and all its teams should have a facility enabling them to play home games in Mount Pleasant.
The team had a stadium to play in until Kelly/Shorts Stadium was renovated and the new FieldTurf was deemed unfit to play field hockey on. This is in no way the football team’s fault. They deserve the best surface to play on as well.
A number of complications allowed this predicament to happen. There has been engineering delays and the turf didn’t arrive in Mount Pleasant until this week.
But why has the athletic department put itself in this position in the first place?
The board of trustees didn’t approve construction on the field hockey venue until June 25. The new turf for Kelly/Shorts Stadium was approved March 5. Didn’t the athletic department know then a new field hockey stadium was going to have to be built when they decide to renovate Kelly/Shorts?
The project was originally supposed to take 10 weeks and that deadline had passed. There was no contract saying the field was going to be done on a certain date. Wouldn’t that be a smart thing to do to ensure that the field hockey team had a home field?
The athletic department projected the FieldTurf at Kelly/Shorts was projected to be done by mid-June, but it wasn’t done until August.
No matter how much of an injustice this has been to the field hockey team, one would never know that any player or coach was affected by it. The whole team uses an attitude of “we don’t care where we play; we only care about who we play.”
There is no doubt that the team is focused only on the games being played because coach Cristy Freese has instilled that mindset in the team. That is what any good coach would do with their team when faced with adversity.
The only good thing to come out of this situation is in times of a tight budget Michigan State University is not charging CMU to use its facility.
There is no need to place blame on anyone why the field hockey venue was not completed by Sept. 24 for Central’s first home game. Rather, someone needs to step up and take responsibility for the new field not being ready.
Life Sports Reporter Jason Rising can be reached for comment at sports@cm-life.com.
