WKU News

WKU and WKU Athletics held the Hilltopper Fieldhouse Final Beam Raising Ceremony on Tuesday.

The beam was the 315th and final for the Hilltopper Fieldhouse, and was placed in the northeast corner of the 122,000 square football facility. The Hilltopper Fieldhouse will be home to the WKU Forensics and Esports programs, as well as provide practice and training space for the Big Red Marching Band and Hilltopper Athletics. The facility is being built upon the land that was formerly the football practice field, located in between Houchens Industries-L.T. Smith Stadium and Nick Denes Field.

"As we mark this important occasion, we also look ahead with tremendous anticipation to the opportunities and resources this exceptional facility will offer our students and our WKU Community – a designated location for our athletes, for our Big Red Marching Band and for our forensics and esports teams," WKU President Timothy C. Caboni said. "A place where they train, practice, refine and prepare for performance and competition – year-round, regardless of weather events or circumstances. When the Fieldhouse opens this fall, they will have a place to call their own. A home."

Speaking at the ceremony were Reeves Young General Manager Jennifer Kinsey and Caboni. Special guests for the ceremony included WKU First Lady Kacy Caboni; Board of Regents Chair Currie Milliken; Regent Gary Broady; Regent Doris Thomas; Regent Shane Spiller; Regent Jennifer Hammonds; Regent Sam Kurtz; Representative Kevin Jackson; Warren County Judge Executive Doug Gorman; Deputy Warren County Judge Executive Bryan Downing; Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott; Warren County Magistrate Rick Williams; City Commissioner Sue Parrigin; and representing Senator Mitch McConnell, Hunter Whittaker.

Renderings for the Hilltopper Fieldhouse, as well as the new Football press box, were revealed during the WKU Board of Regents committee meetings in October and can be found here. The Board of Regents approved the project in June 2022 and a groundbreaking ceremony was held in November 2023. Construction on the Hilltopper Fieldhouse is expected to be completed in the fall. The new 15,300 square-foot press box opened during the 2024 season and serves as a first-class home for media coverage of Hilltopper Football games. Situated above the existing Harbaugh Club, the press box houses radio booths, coaches' booths, working press and game operations, as well as premium suites. Guests were invited to tour the renovated Harbaugh Club and new press box following the ceremony.

"This will be a spectacular addition in many ways," WKU Director of Athletics Todd Stewart said. "If you think about it, people come and go – coaches come and go, athletes come and go, even administrators come and go – but buildings stay, and this will have a generational impact. Once this building is completed, it will serve as the home for many different people and will enable us to recruit at a higher level and develop student-athletes at a higher level. I think even when coaching positions come open, having this versus not having this is a plus because many people in the country won't have something this nice."

The Hilltopper Fieldhouse was designed by K. Norman Berry Associates, Brown + Kubican Structural Engineers and Kerr Greulich Engineers, Incorporated, and construction is being done by Reeves Young and the WKU Planning, Design and Construction Team.

"I will admit, this is the first indoor practice facility that we have built that hasn't been purely for athletics, and I think that's really exciting," Reeves Young General Manager Jennifer Kinsey said. "I think it's a great use of the space. We build on a lot of college campuses across the southeast, and we're finding that all of these building are multi-disciplinary. They can be cross-functioned and used for multiple things because technology, education, how students learn – all of that is changing rapidly."

A final ceremony to celebrate the new Hilltopper Fieldhouse is expected to be held once construction is complete.

• More: Renderings; Hilltopper Fieldhouse & Press Box

The new Hilltopper Fieldhouse will:

• Serve as the permanent home to the WKU Forensics program and provide the program with modern classroom, practice, office, and competition space to allow it to continue its run of excellence as the most dominant collegiate speech and debate organization in the country.
• House the WKU E-Sports programs and teams and equip them with state-of-the-art competition space, practice pods and offices.
• Become the new base for the Big Red Marching Band program with dedicated storage/support space for the band as well as a venue for year-round, all-weather practice.
• Include a new Baseball Clubhouse with Locker Room, Weight Room, Team Room and Coaches' Offices.
  House a new baseball hitting facility with four batting cages and flexible multi-purpose space.
• Incorporate an 87,000 square foot indoor training facility for use by the WKU Marching Band, WKU Athletics, Intramurals and the greater WKU community.
• Serve to better equip WKU students for their endeavors in the classroom and in their competitions.
• Serve as a place of learning and collaboration for the various programs that will call it home.
• Celebrate the great success of the programs that will continue to grow and succeed from within this new facility.
• Encourage and provide the tools for innovation, learning, collaboration and success.