YSU plans indoor sports training facility

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University is looking to put its first indoor sports training facility on the north side of campus.

An existing outdoor track just east of Elm Street and south of the Madison Avenue Expressway is the preferred location, according to a project update presented to the YSU Board of Trustees.

The WATTS (Watson And Tressel Training Site) Center has been a reality since the university announced in mid-2007 that former YSU head football coach Jim Tressel and his wife, Ellen, and her parents, Frank and Norma Watson, had pledged to give the university $1 million to help build an indoor practice field.

The WATTS Center has been undergoing design and revisions since then, and the recommended plan presented recently to the board of trustees by Ron Strollo, YSU executive director of athletics, shows a $10 million facility that will house a full-size indoor football field, a 300-meter indoor track, locker rooms and related facilities in a 120,200-square-foot package.

It’s a central location, close to Stambaugh Stadium, and will be used by the university’s intercollegiate sports teams baseball, football, soccer, softball and track teams as well as for student recreation and intramural sports and perhaps the community, Strollo said in his report.

Some new outdoor recreation facilities for softball and soccer would come later.

Read more in Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com