By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
It was gone, but now it’s back, Missouri Western State University is reinstating track and field.
Almost two weeks after saying the program would be discontinued, Missouri Western reversed that decision on Saturday, after receiving support for the program
Athletic Director Andy Carter says there are still many conversations to have, so he gave no specifics to where that support came from, but Carter says they felt strongly they could to back to what they were doing
“I mean other than the upheaval of the last 10 days, or whatever it’s been, we’re going back to what we were doing and going deep into conversations with people about how do we get this facility put in place as quickly as we can,” Carter tells reporters.
Carter says the original decision to discontinue the program had nothing to do with money for other programs
“It was that we weren’t able to provide a facility, which made their experience less than what we wanted to be, and we had tried that for three years and really got to a point where we didn’t know where to go and did not want to bring in another class and make them promises that we couldn’t keep,” Carter explains.
Carter says with this new information and new support they chose to pivot hard and fast to reinstate the program to help continue providing the best experience for student athletes.
Part of that includes an actual facility for the program, which Carter says plans are not solid for quite yet.
“We have enough information to be able to make this decision and then let’s see, I mean proof will be in the pudding right as they say, whether we can get that done or not still remains to be seen,” Carter says. “But we feel like we have enough momentum and energy and support to pivot from the decision and get back into this game of seeing if we can get this done.”
Carter also points out that getting a new facility done could help revive the sprinting programs, which had already been discontinued at Western, by developing a track on campus.
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