Last Updated:4:09 PM EST 1/27/10 Section: News

The image outlined in yellow is an artist's rendering of the proposed Polisseni Track and Field complex. The field will be built next to Growney Stadium.

St. John Fisher College's athletic department will get a major facelift soon.

The College recently announced a three million dollar donation from the Polisseni Foundation that will fund the construction of the new Polisseni Track and Field Complex.

College officials expect the complex to be completed in time for seven new sports to begin competition in the fall of 2011. The new sport programs will be men and women's cross country, men and women's indoor track, men and women's outdoor track and field hockey.

"It is big for the athletic program and huge for the College," athletic director Bob Ward said. "It allows us to fill out the facilities, but more importantly to bring seven more sports that could bring in 150 students."

In addition making the new teams possible, College President Donald Bain believes the complex will be a benefit to all Fisher students.

"What it is going to do is make more choices available to students if they wish to participate in competitive sports," Bain said. "It will also make a tremendous facility available to them for their own personal training and recreation."

The process of securing the third largest gift in Fisher history was a long one that involved many people. The past three years especially has seen many plans developed and pitched to potential donors.

"Within athletics there were probably half a dozen major projects that were proposed and we have developed," Bain said. "They [the Polisseni Foundation] chose, among the possible athletic-related projects what they found appealing, and what they would be interested in supporting, which was a new track and field."

The new complex should help further establish Fisher's sports program and set it apart from other competing schools.

"On one level it is going to help us keep up. Many of the schools that might attract the same students currently have more varsity level sport offerings than we do. To add these seven will make us quite comparable to those schools," Bain said. "At the same time because of the newness of the facility, the excellence of our leadership of the program and the expression of students who are very interested in these programs I think it is going to set us apart."

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