After many seasons without a soccer field on campus, Governors State University administration members say giving the Jaguars a home field will be a priority in 2025.

The GovState soccer teams were established in the 2019-2020 school year as part of an effort to expand athletics on campus. Despite early successes, the teams continue to practice and play games off-campus, which has been a burden for some players.

The athletes wake up early and travel 45 to 50 minutes to access a proper soccer field in Indiana. After practices, students ride the shuttle back to campus, get ready, and head to class. The travel times make a demanding schedule even worse, mainly because the locker rooms on campus have been closed for repairs for at least 18 months. If they are lucky, they might be able to use the showers in Praire Place so they don’t have to leave campus to freshen up.

“We don’t ever have a home-field advantage,” a player told the Phoenix. “Some teams we play have more fans at our home games than we do.”

GovState home soccer games are currently played at the Crown Point Sportsplex in Crown Point, Indiana.

A large group of athletes attended the September open Student Senate meeting to voice their concerns about facilities, including the lack of locker rooms and the potential permanent closing of the campus pool. The outcry prompted the Senate to add student-athlete representatives to the body.

At the October Student Senate meeting, Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Paul McGuinness and Associate Vice President for Facilities Development and Management John Potempa presented a plan to the Senate and discussed the reasons for the delay in building a soccer field. The administrators said that an effort to add the soccer fields had been canceled because an underground natural gas pipeline intersected the property. The company that owns the pipeline denied a request for an easement.

McGuinness told the Senate, “The university will begin construction on the soccer field in the spring of 2025, to complete the field by the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester.”  He said improvements to the soccer field, such as lights and stands for fans, will come later.

McGuinness said they will take the soccer field plan to the GovState Board of Trustees for approval at the February board meeting. He said that completing the soccer field is a priority that President Cheryl Green wants to ensure happens before her retirement in the spring.

According to Potempa, multiple plans for completing the project are in place as a redundancy to prevent any further delays. “This is a done deal,” he said.

McGuiness said they might even have a potential donor who would give the school an annual donation for the naming rights to the soccer field.