Bemidji State Begins Athletic Facility Storm Cleanup

Bemidji State University took a sizable amount of damage during the June 21st storm, and so did their outdoor athletic facilities.

Chet Anderson Stadium suffered damage to its press box, as well as to a light pole and the play clock in the west end zone. On the north side of campus, the wind completely destroyed the BSU softball field backstop, while the baseball field took damage to its batting cages, concessions stand, the away bullpen fence, and the outfield fence that was blown over last summer during a thunderstorm, along with other damage.

“That first day that I was here, I saw all the trees, saw the campus facilities, but yes, our athletics, the baseball diamond and softball diamond, seeing the Chet—that’s a lot of damage,” said BSU president John Hoffman. “But we also have got a great team. By closing campus down for a week, we were able to accelerate some of our recovery processes.”

“We are planning for camps to come in, for fall sports to take place just like they would,” added athletic director Britt Lauritsen. “They may look a little bit different depending on what we need to do, but this is really been the first week that we’ve been able to come in and test every light switch and outlet, those types of things.

“We’ve been trying to do really comprehensive walkthroughs of our facilities, take copious amounts of notes,” she continued. “From there we will just triage—what do we need to do to make sure it’s safe, to make sure the fan experience is as great as we can make it, and ultimately have a place where our student-athletes can compete safely and hopefully win some games.”

With the elevated number of repairs needing to be made, BSU does not yet have a timeline for when it will all be finished.