FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association has presented the Office of Campus Recreation at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis with one of only three annual awards recognizing outstanding sports facilities.
IUPUI’s outdoor recreation facility was selected by NIRSA, which supports leaders in collegiate recreation, for several reasons, including its environmentally friendly components, said Matt Rota-Autry, director of campus recreation.
The Campus Recreation Outdoor Facility at Lockefield Green, a project led by the Division of Student Affairs, features three modified outdoor basketball courts, two sand volleyball courts, a resistance-training fitness park and other amenities on a 3.18-acre site.
The association focused on “how green we are,” Rota-Autry said. The facility’s sustainable features include:
- A “rain garden” landscaped area designed to collect rainfall and stormwater runoff from the basketball and volleyball courts. Plants were selected and installed to help clean pollutants from the water as it seeps into the ground.
- An automatic irrigation system that avoids over- and underwatering.
- Two grass-covered earth mounds installed and trees planted to assist in limiting sound travel and provide a quiet urban green space, where students can play games or just lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
- A low-level lighting system that is adjusted seasonally so the lights illuminate only as needed.
Another factor considered by the association was the facility’s fitness park, which has nine strength- and resistance-training stations designed to promote and sustain physical, mental and emotional health and wellness to enhance student success, Rota-Autry said.
Fenced-off basketball courts with access only to IUPUI community members was also a feature considered by the association, Rota-Autry said.
“And finally, I think a big factor is that our facility is located on a historical epicenter,” he said.
The outdoor recreational center site was known as the Dust Bowl from the 1940s to the 1960s because it was originally a dirt playground. Now the Lockefield Gardens basketball court, the Dust Bowl was a proving ground for hundreds of young Indianapolis basketball players, including members of the Crispus Attucks High School teams that won Indiana state championships in 1955 and 1956.
“Recognition of the outdoor facility is important because it reflects the significance IUPUI places on providing students a respite from their busy lives, to just go somewhere to breathe and relax and recreate,” Rota-Autry said. “We offer that opportunity right here.”