11 minute read
O'BRATE STADIUM
A PLACE EVERYONE FOR
STORY BY KEVIN KLINTWORTH
— Larry Reece
Oklahoma State Baseball has a new home.
The move is historic. Not once-in-a-lifetimehistoric because, after all, OSU opened a new park in 1981. But 1981 gets further in the rear view mirror every day. Ronald Reagan was in his first year as president, and Jimmy Johnson was coaching Oklahoma State football. But it is still a rare occurrence.
OSU has been playing ball just north of Bennett Hall since long before Allie P. Reynolds Stadium was constructed on the location. The site was called University Park and was home to the OSU baseball team for decades.
And while OSU is saying goodbye to its historical home—a place where it won 20 conference championships in 39-plus years— it would be hard to blame the Cowboys if they literally sprinted up the street to their new digs.
O’Brate Stadium, named for principle donor Cecil O’Brate, is not just a new gameday home for the program. The stadium is the heart of what can only be described as a new Cowboy baseball complex. An artificial turf practice infield, a pitching laboratory, a new indoor facility, a locker room twice the size of OSU’s dressing quarters at Allie P., premium areas, a 360-degree concourse and even a new parking lot all constitute the new facility on the corner of McElroy and Washington, just across the street from the Greenwood Tennis Center.
As Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday likes to say, “O’Brate Stadium will make everyone happy.”
“Honestly I think my favorite part is just
the way things all came together,” Holliday said as construction began to wind down. “We started out with a focus on the player and the development of the team and the day in the life of a student-athlete concept. And then we started diving into the stadium itself and thought about creating an unbelievable ballpark our fans will love—one that will reach our student body and open our doors to the community. It all just kind of clicked, and that’s what is so fun to show people.
“There’s something for everyone.”
The Pretty Stuff
At his introductory news conference, Holliday told those gathered that his pitch regarding the historic but aging Reynolds Stadium would be that recruits would have the opportunity to play where the greatest players in college baseball history had laced them up.
And that spin, along with Holliday’s passion for his university and college baseball, has worked well. Under the former Cowboy player, Oklahoma State has never missed an NCAA Regional, added three more conference championships, made three appearances in the NCAA Super Regionals and returned to the College World Series for the first time since 1999.
But by today’s standards, Reynolds Stadium had become a barebones facility and in many ways an obstacle. And with Bennett Hall to the south and OSU softball headquartered just beyond left field, a buildup around OSU’s traditional home was briefly considered but deemed impossible.
Thus the move to O’Brate Stadium, which is already paying dividends.
“Facilities do mean a lot in recruiting, even though there are countless occurrences of great teams being built with modest facilities,” Holliday said. “But I think people who have had a chance to see our new place have been taken aback.
“It has definitely opened the eyes of elite
players and their families. It has changed the dynamic. It’s one thing to have drawings and plans and good intentions. It’s a whole new deal to be right down the home stretch of completing a world class facility.
“We are getting access to some players that maybe we wouldn’t have had a chance to get a visit from in the past. And once you get on this beautiful campus and meet the wonderful people and start to realize all the awesome DNA that exists here, it makes for a great college experience.”
For the players, there are some very tangible benefits to the new digs, including six new batting cages, state of the art pitching technology and bullpen sessions in a controlled climate. The turf practice field allows OSU to prepare for any kind of field conditions it may find on the road.
“The synthetic turf has an extended infield and so we will have a tremendous amount of space and will be able to do a number of different things we’ve never been able to do before,” Holliday said. “It gives us premium space for drills, baserunning and defensive repetitions, pitcher fielding. And it will reduce the wear and tear on our natural grass inside O’Brate Stadium.
“We will have time to get the kids through a great workout and do so in a time frame that allows them to move on to the next stage of their day … more time for academic investment, more time to be students.
“I can’t wait to get into the space every day and get into that environment to train and develop the kids. The building just north of left field is going to be a game changer for us.
“I’m excited about the beautiful classroom setting we have created where we can meet as a group and prepare kids for the task at hand. To use teaching videos in an environment that gets them ready for practice that day or listen to a guest speaker, show video clips and current things that are happening in the sport ... things that are a part of these guys’ culture.
“So walking into that building, whether it’s the training room or weight room, the locker room, the team meeting room or heading up the steps to the coaches level, where we will be able to spread out and really attack our work and have a beautiful place to welcome alumni, it’s all exciting.”
The former Cowboys, the ones that used Reynolds Stadium as a springboard to OSU’s nearly unmatched baseball achievements, have also been included in the O’Brate Stadium plans.
“I think the other feature of the building I’m so excited about is the alumni locker
room where past players, whether they are currently playing professional baseball or just back here going to school and finishing their degrees, also have a place where they can locker and call home,” Holliday said. “We continue to keep the doors wide open for those guys beyond their playing years. We continue to encourage and to promote finishing school and getting degrees and give those guys a place to call home in the winter while they are training and getting ready for spring training.
“We want the (new) facility to be someplace that the players who made Allie P. so special have a spot in as well so they can be a part of the excitement.”
For The Fans
As Holliday detailed, the early plans centered—rightfully so—on the studentathletes. But there was a lot of homework and attention paid to fan amenities, premium areas and the gameday experience in general.
“We have a chance to create some new baseball experiences and environments, such as the club and suite areas and the outfield seating areas,” Holliday said. “It gives us a chance to tap into the awesome gameday atmosphere that we see in the fall at Boone Pickens Stadium.”
The new park includes 13 suites and a
club located on the media level. There will be food and drink options in the left and right field corners and a bleacher experience that will include grills for fans who want to create their own ballpark cuisine.
“O’Brate Stadium will give OSU fans an opportunity for premium seating to watch one of the most tradition rich programs in college baseball history,” said OSU senior associate athletic director Larry Reece. “Cowboy baseball has always been about championships. With the new ballpark, it will also be about an experience the entire family can enjoy.
“During the construction process, a lot of people questioned if the field had been measured to the correct dimensions because the sheer size of the facility provides such a change in perspective.
“The magnitude of the stadium will blow our fans away.”
OSU athletic director Mike Holder wants O’Brate Stadium to spawn a new generation of Hollidays.
“I wanted to build a place that produces more stories and more lives like Josh and Matt Holliday,” Holder said. “It’s not about the sport. It’s about them basically growing up at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. It was where they spent their childhood. It’s amazing listening to them talk about their memories of those days and the influence it had on their lives.
“I want that for a lot more youngsters. I want families to be in that stadium. Those are my favorite pieces of the stadium—the areas for families.
“The magic happens when everything comes together. You need the facility, which leads to our coaches recruiting and developing the players, which leads to a full stadium. That’s when the magic happens.”
With a new spacious parking lot behind center field, the gameday experience begins on a much better note for fans from the moment of arrival. A great benefit of Reynolds Stadium has always been its proximity to campus. But when it comes to parking, location has also been a hindrance. The tight squeeze on the northeast corner of campus was further cluttered with the popularity of Cowgirl softball program and its growing fan base.
In the new digs, fans can enter O’Brate Stadium from center field and make their way around the concourse to seating along both foul lines and behind home plate. The traditional entry behind home plate remains an option as well.
THE “ MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN EVERYTHING
COMES TOGETHER.
— MIKE HOLDER
WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART
Everyone was a child at some point and can identify with wrapped presents under a tree that can’t be opened until Christmas. The agonizing last two weeks of the holiday season drag by and occasionally lead to some “peeking” or maybe some “accidental” unwrapping.
Josh Holliday can identify. But his Christmas season lasted almost two years, from the announcement of a new stadium in March of 2018 through the opening of the facility this spring.
“I’d say there was a stretch there of at least 60 days on my way to work I’d drive around it, peek at it from the parking lot and then revert back to work,” Holliday said. “On my way home I’d do the same thing. The notable changes that took place in June, July and August were pretty awesome. There was so much going on, at least from the exterior.
“During last season it was pretty easy to stay locked into baseball since we were so immersed in what we were doing. But when the season ended and summertime came, if I was in town it was pretty much a twice daily occurrence.”
And now the wait is virtually over.
The Future
An intersection of events in the early 1980s helped launch Oklahoma State—and college baseball—into the national spotlight. Predating the decade was the arrival of Gary Ward as OSU’s head coach. He orchestrated the campaign for Reynolds Stadium and proceeded to stock the roster with power hitters and the gaudiest numbers in the history of the sport.
At the same time, ESPN was born, and in its quest to fill the network with programming outside of Australian rules football, it stumbled across college baseball, the College World Series and players named Incaviglia and Ventura. As a result, OSU became a fixture on national
television, a fixture at the College World Series and one of college baseball’s blue
bloods. It is a label it still wears today.
But can a new stadium still have the same kind of effect on a program when the world is such a different place? Lightning striking twice would seem hard to fathom. Baseball lived on the perimeter of college athletics when Reynolds Stadium was constructed.
Today college baseball is much more in the mainstream, with entire conference networks seemingly built around the baseball and softball seasons and every pitch of every Regional and Super Regional now televised. The talent level has changed as well, with the Major League Baseball Draft skewing more and more toward players with college experience, a big change from 1981. Overall, the college baseball landscape is much more competitive than it was before OSU helped grow it in popularity.
However, the construction and completion of O’Brate Stadium announces to the rest of the baseball community that OSU is all-in on the sport that it helped propel into the public eye.
“Facilities are important because they illustrate a university’s commitment to a sport,” Holder said. “Baseball is important at Oklahoma State.”
Consider the message delivered.
“Some of the folks who have had a chance to see it say they feel like they are in a small major league park,” Holliday said. “So the awe factor has been delivered, but the seating is cozy like a Fenway or Wrigley. We didn’t lose the intimacy of a park and still built one heck of a stadium.
Game on.
COURSE WORK
Located on the northwest corner of campus, OSU’s newly revamped cross country course is set to host the 2020 NCAA Championships in November. Billed as the premier collegiate cross country course in the nation, the course boasts a blanket of fully irrigated running surface. But don’t let that beautiful Bermuda grass fool you – this turf will test the nation’s top runners with challenging terrain and deceptive hills over races from 5-10 kilometers.
PHOTO BY BRUCE WATERFIELD
MOE IBA
STORY BY GENE JOHNSON
