UTRGV officials and local Rio Grande Valley leaders break ground on the new Vaquero Performance Center last Tuesday on the north side of the UTRGV Baseball Stadium on the Edinburg campus.
On Nov. 28, UTRGV Athletics broke ground on the upcoming Vaqueros Performance Center in Edinburg on the north side of the UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
The performance center is a 45,000 plus-square-foot facility,and will include two practice fields, one made with natural grass and one with synthetic turf. These fields will be used by both soccer and football teams.
It will also include a strength and conditioning facility that will be used by the football team and other UTRGV athletic programs.
Vice President and Director of Athletics Chasse Conque explained how the Vaquero Performance Center benefits the athletic program.
“It’s a special day,” Conque said. “All the different things that we have going on in athletics right now over $85 million in construction this is one of the crown jewels of our projects. The neat thing about the Vaqueros Performance Center is that it’s going to have an impact on all of our student-athletes and that’s one thing I don’t think we can celebrate enough.”
During the ceremony, Conque and the UTRGV Athletics Department announced the facility will include the Val LaMantia and Dr. Guy Bailey Academic Success Center. President Guy Bailey spoke about what an honor it is to be a part of the facility.
“We are deeply honored,” Bailey said. “Val has been one of the biggest contributors to athletics for a long time. It’s very important to us. We are all about student success, her family does the Star scholarships and that’s to help students succeed. So, for the student success piece to be named after us is really touching and we are very honored by it.”
Head football coach Travis Bush said the football program is signing its first recruiting class this December. Bush spoke about the quality of athletes drawn to this first-class facility.
“It’s been a big draw,” he said. “It’s what allowed us to get the quality of student athletes that are committed already and a lot of them haven’t even stepped on campus yet. Some of them just see what’s coming and we are able to show the renderings and [know] that this is going to be a first class facility.”
The Vaqueros Performance Center will be up and running by the fall semester of 2025, right before the football program kicks off its season.
For more information, visit goutrgv.com.
This is Kevynne Aleman for Vaquero Radio.
