Milton Williams is facing tasks this week he hasn’t dealt with in more than a decade.
Instead of loading his UALR track and field team onto a bus to travel for a meet on another school’s campus, for the first time in the program’s history the Trojans will be competing at home this weekend.
The UALR Open begins at 10:30 a.m. today at Coleman Sports and Recreation Complex, located just southeast of the intersection of Asher and University avenues in southwest Little Rock. It marks the first time UALR will hold a meet on campus and the first time the school will serve as host for a meet since it used Russellville High School’s track for one in 2002.
So instead of organizing bus trips and hotel accommodations, Williams has spent the past few days organizing officials and making sure everything is in top shape at the two-year-old facility that had been on UALR’s wish list for a decade.
That doesn’t mean Williams has been able to relax.
“A home meet is much harder,” Williams said while standing on the new surface he’d been wanting ever since his arrival at UALR in 2001. “It’s not even close. It’s easier to get on the bus and go compete.It’s hard to organize a meet.”
That’s not to say Williams isn’t grateful for the opportunity. A track facility was a distant dream when he arrived as an assistant coach and was still a lofty goal when he took over as head coach in 2004.
It wasn’t until a $34 million bond package that included financing of the $4 million facility was approved in October 2009 and the donation of a 10-acre tract of land by Coleman Dairy that the track and soccer facility became a reality.
Construction began in March 2011, and the UALR soccer team played its first game there in 2012. The track wasn’t completed in time to schedule home meets last year, but the Trojans practiced on it.
Now, after more than a decade of waiting, UALR’s final program without its own permanent facility will celebrate its new home by hosting a meet with athletes from eight schools competing.
Athletic Director Chris Peterson said it isn’t common at the NCAA Division I level for a program not to have its own facility, but he said the Trojans have managed to deal with the inconvenience.
“It’s a special day for UALR track and field,” Peterson said.
The facility also provides Williams a chance to build a full program. Since his arrival in 2001, UALR has emphasized its cross country and long-distance programs because it didn’t possess adequate facilities to lure top sprinters or field event athletes.
Williams said that emphasis won’t ever change - UALR’s men’s cross country team won a Sun Belt Conference title in 2012 and finished second in 2013 - but a broadening of talent has long been a goal.
The facility is located within walking distance of University Village, where most of the track and field athletes live, and it includes four long jump pits and an area for throwing events just southeast of the track. There are two discus rings - which one they use depends on which way the wind is blowing - and two shot put rings.
Instead of having to bus to Bryant High School or Scott Field in Little Rock - the two sites the program used in the past - now it’s all in one convenient location.
“We’ve been very appreciative of those schools letting us use their facility,” Williams said. “But this is so much better for us.”
UALR isn’t done, either. Peterson and Williams said the next phase includes the construction of a fieldhouse behind the existing bleachers that would include locker rooms, coaches offices and a weight room for the track and soccer programs.
Peterson also would like to increase seating capacity from its current 350 to around 1,000. If it manages that, Williams said it could put in bids to host state track meets and maybe someday the Sun Belt Conference meet. The 5A-Central Conference high school meet will be held there later this month.
Best of all, though, is the fact that it’s theirs.
“It’s our home,” Williams said. “And there’s no place like home.”
At a glance WHAT UALR Open WHERE Coleman Sports and Recreation Complex, Little Rock WHEN 10:30 a.m. today ADMISSION Free TEAMS UALR, Central Arkansas, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Arkansas Baptist, Arkansas Tech, Hendrix, Harding, Rhodes College
Sports, Pages 23 on 04/12/2014