(Midway, Ky.) – In less than four months’ time, Midway University’s Athletics Department has had the largest increase in student athletes and largest growth of additional sports in its history.
The entire athletic roster increased to 258 student athletes, which is a 169 percent change over last year’s total roster of 96. With the addition of four men’s athletic teams and the addition of cross country and tennis for women, the University now offers 14 different team sports compared to eight last year.
“This marks a significant milestone for the University. When our board voted in May to transition our traditional undergraduate programs to coeducation, we knew that adding male athletic teams would be one way we would grow,” said Dr. John P. Marsden, President, Midway University. “However, we had no idea at that time that we would absorb men’s athletic teams from St. Catharine’s College.” Midway added men’s baseball, basketball and soccer and hired coaches for those teams from St. Catharine College. Golf was also added to complete the expansion of men’s athletics for this season along with bringing back women’s cross country and tennis.
“I can’t say if anything like this has ever happened to another school, but for Midway it is historic and record-breaking,” said William “Rusty” Kennedy, Midway Athletics Director. “We are years ahead of where we thought we would be just a few weeks ago when we were developing our strategic plan based on the decision to go co-ed – that plan soon got lost on my desk as we worked to figure out new schedules for all of our teams.”
Kennedy added “In addition to all of our internal changes, our conference also rebranded and changed its name from the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to the River States Conference in July – a lot of change for a small institution in a short period of time. On top of that, we found ourselves with a baseball team but no field.”
Marsden noted that Kennedy and all of his coaching staff worked tirelessly this summer, along with many other offices on campus, to get the student-athletes enrolled on time, moved in, uniforms and equipment ordered, and yes, solving the mystery of where the baseball team would play. Midway has signed an agreement to use Chandler Field at Falling Springs in Versailles as its home field this season.
The University began classes last week, and although official enrollment reports aren’t in, there is definitely a significant enrollment increase in the undergraduate numbers at Midway with all the new student-athletes. With this growth, the Offices of Academic Affairs and Athletics continue to work together, as they always have, to reinforce that students are students first and athletes second at Midway University.
Midway Athletics is already off to a great start. The Women’s Golf Team took first place in this week’s Bluegrass Fall Invitational Tournament, along with the men’s team taking second place. Midway Athletics will host the first home games of the season beginning next week when Women’s Soccer hosts Johnson University on September 8. The first-ever Men’s Soccer home game will be September 17 against Marian University.