By Daniel Evans
The Selma Times-Journal

Concordia’s new on-campus field will not be hosting football games this year despite reports to the contrary, but moving football games to the field is part of the college’s long-term plan.

For this upcoming season, the Hornets will continue use Memorial Stadium to host football games. However, the new field will host on-campus soccer games.

“The field is not really only soccer. It is more football and soccer. It is designed in a way to accommodate track and field. The field will be ready by the end of August, probably the middle of August,” Concordia president Rev. Dr. Tilahun Mendedo said Friday. “This is part of the school’s renovation plan and part of our strategy plan for expanding the campus service to the students and the community.”

The field will not be replacing Memorial Stadium for football games.

“This is not going to replace Memorial Stadium. We are having a field, which will help for particularly soccer games and some activities for our students on campus,” Mendedo said. “Concordia still depends on the city stadium for some matches and games. We are not really building a stadium that substitutes the stadium the city has.”

Until additional features can be added on, the field will not have all the accommodations that it will need to house football games.

“We don’t have bleachers; we don’t have all of those necessary facilities and that is not a priority for us,” Mendedo said. “What we did at this point is just to have access to our athletics department; a place where they can exercise and a place where they can have soccer games and tournaments; a place where our students, faculty and staff can hang out and just play some kind of activities.”

Although Mendedo said the school has “not planned any of those football games to be played on this field this year,” he did say moving games to the on-campus field is part of the long-term plan for the college.

“We have a plan to do that, but it is not a short-term plan.  [It will] probably be three, four, five years from now.  Right now our focus is really to make a graded, leveled and professional field that soccer players that come from other colleges and universities are comfortable to play on,” Mendedo said. “The city stadium is very crowded with schedules and it is really designed for football. Sometimes it is hard for our soccer players to play on that field, so we are answering the need of our athletic department. “

The plan is a $1.3 million renovation plan includes more than just a new field.