The St. Mary's Soccer Field

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In October of 2013, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, along with University and city officials, cut the blue ribbon to inaugurate brand new state-of-the-art sports facilities. These new facilities add to the beautiful landscape of The Park, the sports complex at St. Mary’s. The project cost $17.3 million and included a fully renovated baseball field including a training room and offices for the coaching staff, a softball field including locker rooms, batting cages, a ticket office, and outfield stadium seating, new tennis courts, and two FIFA-regulation soccer fields. Bexar County provided a $6 million grant to this project to improve the surrounding community and to enhance the image of the University. In addition, the University hoped the new facilities would attract NCAA DII tournament play, showcasing St. Mary’s beyond San Antonio. Six years later, the men’s soccer team did just that, playing on the recently created Sigma Beta Chi Field.

On Saturday, November 23, 2019 the men’s soccer team became the first team in program history to make an NCAA tournament appearance. This also marked the first time a men's soccer NCAA Tournament game was held at Sigma Beta Chi Field. Led by head coach Johnny Clifford the men’s team earned the number 3-seed in the tournament, playing against the 6-seed Western Washington on Sigma Beta Chi Field. Playing in front of a full crowd of students, family, and friends, the men’s team dominated, defeating Western Washington by a score of 5-0. This result marked the team’s first NCAA tournament win and the University’s first time hosting an NCAA tournament game on Sigma Beta Chi Field.

In 2013, Corwyn Ritch, the former head women’s soccer coach who served for 19 seasons, became the first to coach on Sigma Beta Chi Field used by both the men and women’s soccer teams. Early in his coaching career at St. Mary’s however, the team practiced and played their games on the same field. Before Sigma Beta Chi Field was built, they practiced and played in an area located behind the School of Law and the outfield to the baseball field, and this left both the men and women’s soccer teams with only one field to use. Ritch even recalled when law school students would complain of the music being too loud during the team’s pre-game warm up.

By now, you might be wondering about the name of this field. According to Ritch, from the 1980s to the early 2000s, the men’s soccer team roster was made up of primarily members of the Sigma Beta Chi Fraternity. Therefore, members of the Sigma Beta Chi fraternity helped raise nearly $250,000 during the outdoor sports project for The Park at St. Mary’s. As a result, the University named the soccer field in their honor. Today, Sigma Beta Chi Field is arguably one of the best fields in the Lone Star Conference for Division II athletics.

Recently being named as the interim head women’s soccer coach, I am excited to see what history the men and women’s soccer programs can continue to make on Sigma Beta Chi Field. Having coached on numerous fields throughout my career, I always feel a sense of pride training our student-athletes on our professional-scale field. Sigma Beta Chi Field has a capacity of 250 for our supporters to watch in the bleachers and lights for nighttime games. Sigma Beta Chi Field is located in the center of campus, offering locals from around the Westside an opportunity to experience college level athletics at St. Mary’s soccer games.