Ground Broken For Softball Team's Jane Sanders Stadium
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Friday marks two years since the passing of Jane Sanders. One day earlier, ground was broken on a fitting, lasting tribute to the former UO cheerleader remembered by one of her grandchildren as “an Oregon Duck to the core.”
A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday for Jane Sanders Stadium, the new softball facility that will replace Howe Field. The 1,500-seat stadium will be the centerpiece of a facility scheduled to open in March 2016, housing an Oregon softball team that’s reached the Women’s College World Series three of the last four seasons.
“They’ve really done that with one arm tied behind their back,” UO athletic director Rob Mullens said. “For those young ladies, we haven’t been able to give them all we would have liked to – until now.”
Mullens, senior women’s administrator Lisa Peterson, fundraiser Herb Yamanaka and softball coach Mike White participated in the groundbreaking along with Bob Sanders. The former UO football player provided $16 million in donations for the project, named in honor of his wife, whom Sanders met while a student at Oregon.
Cam Norris, one of the couple’s 25 grandchildren, spoke Thursday of his grandmother. Her height – 5-foot-2 – “belied her impact on those around her, and her enormous heart,” he said.
Norris recalled his grandmother’s excitement in 2012, when the UO softball team made its first WCWS appearance since 1989.
“She talked about the team like they were family – and for her, they were,” Norris said. “… This stadium is equally a new life for my grandmother’s legacy, and a promise of what’s to come.”
White called the day “surreal,” and thanked the Sanders family for its “unbelievable gift.” Demolition of Howe Field took place while the Ducks were in Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series last week, and work on the new stadium’s infrastructure is already underway.
“I’m pinching myself right now,” White said.
Outfielder Koral Costa, a senior next spring, said the idea of a new stadium has long been on the team’s radar. But she grew “skeptical” over the years, and ultimately just hoped to get the chance to play one game in the new facility.
If work goes according to plan, she’ll get to play her entire senior season there. “You don’t believe it until you see it, and I’m definitely seeing it right now,” Costa said. “It’s going to happen.”
Dave Quivey, project superintendent for general contractor Howard S. Wright, said the construction schedule is aggressive, but not any different from those of other projects they’ve done for Oregon.
Quivey said the project will really begin to take shape come fall. “It’ll be tough,” Quivey said. “It’ll be a run through the winter. But we’re on line to get this thing open by the end of February.”
Oregon’s first scheduled home game in the new facility is against Stanford in March. “The average person coming in will be surprised at how ‘done’ it is,” Quivey said, adding that some landscaping may not be complete until later in the spring.
Costa and the Ducks took time during Thursday’s ceremony to thanks the Sanders family for their contribution.
“They’re very family based people, and as a softball team we’re family oriented as well,” Costa said. “It’s just nice for two families to come together and work toward a cause: to better the sport, better the school, better the student-athlete experience. I’m just really excited to get this thing going.”
