New land acquired will benefit college

By Mari Pothier | mpothier@flagler.edu
Photographs by Phillip C. Sunkel IV

Jud Damon, director of athletics at Flagler College, said the college’s purchase of five acres off Old Moultrie Road will not only benefit athletes but the whole student body.

According to the St. Augustine Record, Flagler College President William Abare, Jr. said that the college recently paid $1.5 million for the land that will be used to enhance the Flagler Athletics Field Complex.

Damon said Flagler, which is in need of both a practice field for soccer and an intramural field, is considering making a multipurpose field on the land that will be used for both. He also discussed the need for more parking. Nothing has been finalized yet.

Jud Damon, athletics director at Flagler College, speaks at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

“Five acres fills up pretty quickly,” Damon said.

Currently there is only one field being used by both men’s and women’s soccer for practice and playing games, Damon said.

“That field gets a lot of wear and tear and right now it’s not in good condition, we’re trying to do some things and talk to some companies who can come and try to revive it,” Damon said.

Intramurals do not have a place to play on campus and have to use city and county parks, Damon said.

Flagler also opened the Flagler Field Locker Room on Feb. 3 which provides locker rooms for men’s and women’s soccer, baseball, softball and locker rooms for visiting teams. Damon said there will also be a training room in the facility, which the Flagler Athletics Field Complex did not have before.

“So student athletes can get treatment at the field rather then having to come back to the gym,” Damon said.

Steve Voguit, faculty athletics representative, said the new facility is beautiful. The locker rooms have oak lockers, flat screen televisions to watch game footage, couches and laundry rooms. The training room, he said, is large and will be able to provide half a dozen athletes the care they need at once. The whole area is also landscaped.

“It’s what you’d see at a Division I school,” Voguit said.

According to Damon, the new locker room facility will better represent the college. In the past, visiting teams would have to come to the gym, get changed, ride out to the field, play, ride back to the gym, change and then head home.

Flagler College's Board of Trustees cuts the ribbon at the new sports complex.

Damon said, in regards to visiting teams and parents, “that’s their impression of Flagler College by going to that field, and they’ve got no shower, no locker room, no training facility, so they’ve been having a certain impression when going out there and that impression is going to be drastically different.”

Damon also said that the Flagler Field Locker Room may also help when recruiting players from high school.

“I think that facility is going to have a really big impact, you know if you think of yourself as a high school student athlete who’s considering where they’re going to go to play women’s soccer or whatever sport, you can show them that facility now,” Damon said. “It’s really impressive.”

Damon is excited about the advantages the five acres of land and the Flagler Field Locker Room will bring to Flagler.

“I think the student athletes really appreciate it and are really grateful for the institution’s support,” Damon said.