Mississippi State opened the Softball Fieldhouse on Aug. 12, 2023. The 12,700-square foot, $7 million facility provides for every element of a softball student-athlete's day in one location.
The state-of-the-art facility houses the team's locker room and lounge along with a fueling center, film room, athletic training facility, equipment room, showers and indoor practice space.
The turf practice space accounts for 6,100 square feet of the building's footprint. Within that space are five batting cages and two indoor pitching lanes. Glass roll-up doors on one side of the facility open directly to the Bulldog's bullpen and an additional three outdoor pitching lanes. Netting for each batting cage can be raised and lowered individually, allowing for various layouts depending on practice needs.
Behind each batting cage is a monitor where student-athletes can receive instantaneous feedback from any of the technology devices State utilizes to capture developmental data. Access to cutting-edge technology offeres student-athletes the opportunity to see the results of the adjustments they are making in real time.
Down the hall, the Bulldogs now have a dedicated and fully-stocked equipment room on site, complete with space-saving storage racks and laundry facilities.
A 30-seat theater-style film room is home to team meetings and serves as the program's media room for postgame interviews. During construction in the fall of 2022, every member of the 2023 team signed the names of all prior alumni of the program on the concrete risers of the film room to acknowledge those that came before them and laid the foundation for where the program is today.
The team lounge features a plaque honoring The 80s Ladies, a group of alumni from the first era of State softball from 1982-86 before the program was discontinued and resurrected in 1997. The lounge offers a space for student-athletes to relax or work on their academic assignments before and after practices. The open-concept floorplan allows the kitchen and fueling center to blend seemlessly with the lounge during team meals.
State's locker room was designed to emulate an MLB clubhouse, with a round layout to promote interaction amongst the team. There are 30 custom-built lockers that feature vanity mirrors and ventilated storage space.
An on-site training room was included in the facility, that more than doubled the treatment space previously available to the team at Nusz Park. The training room accommodates four treatment tables and a taping deck along with two rehabilitation stationary bikes and an assortment of medicine balls, dumbbells and resistance bands.
“There’s so many minor little details that they put in here. Everything in here is intentional and is done with a purpose. To see just how much investment was put into us and our program to create a place like this was really, really cool, and we are grateful for it.” - Josey Marron
Finally, the main entrance lobby features a dual mannequin uniform display along with floating equipment display shelves.
All Bulldog All-Americans, professional players and those that have competed internationally are recognized with plaques on the wall, and there is a central display honoring the late Alex Wilcox and her No One Fights Alone campaign to raise awareness of ovarian cancer.