Light poles tower over the Ray Dennison Memorial Field at Fort Lewis College, standing as a symbol for the hopeful beginning of a school tradition to attend evening football games.
The first football game under the lights is scheduled for Saturday with tailgating starting at 4 p.m. and kickoff at 6 p.m.
“We’re hoping for this to be a nighttime activity that everyone gravitates toward,” said FLC football coach Johnny Cox, “and start a new tradition of coming to the football games at night.”
The cost of the lights was between $700,000 and $750,000, said FLC director of athletics Shawn Jakubowski. The college was able to re-purpose some lights from the soccer field to save costs and and be more environmentally friendly.
A student vote approved a student fee increase to fund the construction of the new lights, Jakubowski said. There were three levels of funding presented in the vote, and the student body government voted for the highest level.
The lights are part of phase one of the voted-in plan. Phase two is going to include re-turfing the field and installing an all-weather track. Phase three will be for constructing an indoor turf building, Jakubowski said.
The lights were designed to meet current illumination standards for collegiate athletics, while prioritizing energy efficiency, responsible light control/scheduling and minimizing impacts to the surrounding environment. The lighting system has technology which minimizes light “spill” and glare beyond the facility, Leonhardt Hoyt, FLC project manager for physical plants, said.
The new lights and planned field improvements are intended to include the entire campus community beyond Saturday night football games.
“They’ll be able to use the field at night,” Jakubowski said. “We’ll be able to have intramurals out here, class activities out here. At night the track will be open for everybody as well.”
Saturday night football games will ideally draw larger crowds to the games and encourage attendance to become an FLC tradition. Games during the day have a lot of competing activities for students and Durango community members, whereas nights tend to be more open, Cox said.
“In Durango, there’s so many options for people’s free time on Saturday,” Cox said. “With skiing, hiking, backpacking – during the day when we had those games we really had to compete with those activities.”
Two home games are in the weekends to come, including the conference opener in the weekend following Saturday’s game. Jakubowski said the tailgating area is getting redone to sell beverages and include a food truck, to provide a “true tailgating experience.”
Saturday, FLC will play against Arizona Christian University. For the conference opener game, the team will play against New Mexico Highlands University.
“When we look back at our ticket sales for this game compared to previous games, I think this is going to be one of our higher attending games for these next two,” Jakubowski said.
jrooney@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this story misstated that Fort Lewis College was paving an athletic track. The college is installing an all-weather track.
