‘Exciting’ day for Mercer baseball program as Bears break ground for state-of-the-art facility

Friday was a long time coming for Mercer baseball head coach Craig Gibson as the program broke ground on its new home.

OrthoGeorgia Park, which will be built on the site of the current Claude Smith Field, will seat 1,500 and feature new dugouts, concession stands, restrooms and press box, along with two open-air suites.

“It’s a great day for us, our baseball program, the campus, the university, the athletic department, and a lot of people have played a big part of it: OrthoGeorgia, (athletics director) Jim Cole, president (Bill) Underwood,” Gibson said. “It’s an exciting day for Mercer baseball, for sure. I met with Jim a couple of weeks ago, and he was asking what our next phase was. And I really think it’s the facility.”

Gibson is counting on the new facility to take the Mercer program, which already has been terrific in recent seasons, to the next level. The Bears have won the Southern Conference regular-season title the past two seasons and reached the NCAA Tournament for the third time in 2015.

The Bears have won at least 35 games for seven straight seasons.

“We’re signing great student-athletes. We’re developing them; they’re getting better,” Gibson said. “But when you bring kids on campus, they want to see a great facility. It shows you’re committed, and you’re all in. This is going to make sure we’re all in, and it plays a major part of it.

“So it’s going to put us on par with the Georgias, the Georgia Techs in our state.”

The facility also should add to the overall setup for the school’s athletics landscape and improve the fans’ enjoyment of the Bears’ home games.

“You’re going to be close to the game. It’s going to be field level. You’re going to have about 1,500 seats here,” Gibson said. “It will match what we did with football. It will match the University Center, and it’s going to fit on campus.”

This story was originally published June 24, 2016 at 8:54 PM with the headline "‘Exciting’ day for Mercer baseball program as Bears break ground for state-of-the-art facility."