BJ has been sending me messages about this thread for a while now and I finally got a chance to look at it tonight. As usual, I see that certain members here have formed strong opinions without having the facts. First of all, when we announced the new baseball stadium, we did say softball would move to the old baseball stadium and they probably still will for a period of time but, as I said on the radio, I really believe the land where Worthington Field is now located will have to be used for academic purposes at some point. Its proximity to DeMoss and the new quad will no doubt someday dictate an academic use. The only promise (that I am aware of) that has ever been made is to build a new softball field. Anyone who can't see LU's commitment to make all of its athletic facilites first class must have their head buried in the sand. It is simply stupid to think that LU would leave one sport out of its overall plan. That doesn't even make sense. If the athletic program is to go where we intend, all sports facilities have to meet a certain standard. There is a long term plan in place for softball and it has not been announced yet but it meets or exceeds the standard that we have set with the baseball stadium, the football stadium and all our other facilities. In fact, it is part of a much larger complex that includes athletic facilities that have never really been discussed before and that I am really excited about. I did not make it clear on the radio that the original plan and the current plan for Worthington was to serve as a softball stadium until a new and better softball stadium was built. We were not ready to release that level of detail at that time. If I had known that some people believed that a promise had been made that the team would be playing in Worthington forever, then I probably would have refrained from commenting on the longer term plans for that site.
So, in the end, this entire thread is based on the false premise that softball was promised that Worthington Field would become a softball stadium and softball would never move again to a new stadium and that somebody arbitrarily decided instead that Worthington was too valuable of a site for softball to ever be located there and was instead building a softball field in some out of the way location.
How many times do I have to come here and set the record straight because certain people with incomplete information refuse to give Liberty the benefit of the doubt? You would think after doing that as many times as I have here that certain people would start to have some confidence in the leadership at Liberty. We have planned and built more facilities in record time in the last six or seven years than maybe any other school in the country and, while circumstances may cause plans to change occasionally, I don't think you will find a school anywhere that moves at the pace Liberty does and accomplishes as much in the construction of new facilities as quickly as Liberty. I can't help that Liberty might have been unable to accomplish all that it planned and hoped to accomplish back in the day when money was tight but, in recent years, I will put our record of delivering what we promised up against anyone's. It is time to start judging Liberty based on the present and recent history instead of the distant past.
And I'm not mad at you, PH. My Dad used to say never get mad when people are saying things about you that are untrue. Just be glad they don't know the truth! I still try to follow his advice.
- By AATL