While the project won’t be complete for another four months, the new end zone facility located at the north end of Fred G. Hughes Stadium is already shaping up to be a unique addition to the Missouri Southern campus. According to Jared Bruggeman, director of athletics, the field house, which is scheduled to be completed by mid August, is an unusual facility to have at a Division II school and will consequently place Southern on the map once it is finished.

“The end zone field house is certainly not something you would see at many Division II institutions due to size, quality and amount of different programming needs being met in one location,” said Bruggeman. “I attribute the significance of this to the great vision of our University leadership and the generous donors and other contributors who recognized that we need to build for the future and not for the now.”

The new facility will include quality athletic training facilities for the student athletes, multiple locker rooms, an athletics hall of fame and offices and meeting rooms for coaches of each Southern sport, as well as academic study rooms for the student athletes and additional areas to host University functions and donor events.

“By including such areas … it places Missouri Southern in a position that immediately allows for the growth and improvement of our already great reputation as an entire university,” said Bruggeman.

In addition to the new training facilities and academic study areas, the new field house will also include medical facilities for the athletes. According to Bruggeman, the pre-existing health facility in the Leggett & Platt Athletic Center does not adequately accommodate the needs for appropriate rehabilitation, prevention and other care often necessary for student athletes, which meant they were occasionally required to travel off campus or use hallway space when being treated.

“As the University continues to adapt, along with NCAA Student-Athlete health care expectations, it became clear, even as our longstanding relationship [with Freeman Sports Medicine] blossomed, that there was a need to provide improved services on site,” said Bruggeman. “Freeman Health Systems stepped up to the plate to provide this necessary and critical health and well-being components to our student athletes by creating the final resources necessary to make the end zone field house a reality.”

Funding for the end-zone facility was provided in large part by the Robert W. Plaster Foundation, which donated two gifts to the Missouri Southern Foundation. With R.E. Smith chosen to oversee construction, work on the $9 million project began in Fall 2014.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have significant donors help us in the process,” said Bruggeman. “People want to see us succeed. They want to see us develop and get stronger and better. We’re getting there.”