This weekend's events (men's soccer tonight and tomorrow, football tomorrow, women's soccer on Sunday) will mark the premiere of the new press box at Augsburg's Edor Nelson Field. Now, I know that this post might interest about two or three people around here ("Nobody cares how sausages are made, they just want to eat the hot dog."), but it's important to those of us whose job is to bring you the best possible coverage of Auggie sports.For the first time in my 12 years of working at Augsburg, we finally have a press box with windows that open!
Our old press box (version 2.0 in the history of Edor Nelson Field) was fondly dubbed the "Easy Bake Oven" by yours truly ... the windows didn't open (which is always fun when you're trying to hear an official's whistle) and with our south-facing alignment at 1 p.m. on a football gameday, it was a little warm inside the press box on most occasions.
That press box was torn down in 2006 to make way for the new Kennedy Center addition to Si Melby Hall, and we were without a separate press box for parts of three seasons. We used the Kennedy Center third-floor rooms overlooking the field as our temporary digs -- dubbed the "Don Stoner Memorial Press Box" by yours truly -- but were still without being able to hear sound from the field.Now, we have a new two-level press box that will enable us to work well during our football and soccer games on the field. Another big benefit is that the Kennedy Center third-floor rooms will be able to be used as great gathering places for the A-Club and other groups during events on the field.
On behalf of everyone who uses the press box, I would like to heartily thank all the donors who made this possible. You are a great group of people and this new facility is greatly appreciated! We will formally dedicate the press box during the Nov. 1 football game against St. Thomas.
