WKU News

WKU celebrated the grand opening of the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse with a building dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday.

The 122,000-square-foot Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse is the new home to the WKU Forensics and Esports programs, and it will provide practice and training space for the Big Red Marching Band and Hilltopper Athletics.

"Today, we gather to celebrate a milestone that speaks to the very heart of who we are as an institution as we dedicate the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse – a place thoughtfully designed to serve our students, our faculty, our staff and our entire WKU Community for generations to come," WKU President Timothy C. Caboni said. "This state-of-the-art, 122,000-square-foot building stands as a symbol of possibility – possibility that only becomes reality when vision, generosity and commitment unite."

Other speakers at the ceremony included Tim Ford, Director of Athletics Todd Stewart, Director of Athletic Bands Matthew McCurry, Esports Faculty Advisor Patricia Todd, Director of Forensics Ganer Newman, K. Norman Berry Associates Architects Principal and Project Manager Tim Doelling and Reeves Young General Manager Jennifer Kinsey.

"This is pretty impressive," Tim Ford said. "It's pretty daunting to walk into a facility and see your name on it. It's a pretty strange feeling. On behalf of myself, my wife, Sarah, and our family, we want to thank you all for being here and we want to thank this University for giving us the opportunity to participate and give to such an incredible facility that we have here. It is spectacular and it is world-class. There really are no words. ... Being someone who played here and was a student here, and to go off and have a career built on much of what I learned here, and to come back and give to it with my wife and my family – it is incredible and an unbelievable feeling."

The Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse includes an 87,000-square-foot indoor training facility for use by the Big Red Marching Band, WKU Athletics, Intramurals and the greater WKU community.

The facility includes a 21,000-square-foot clubhouse for the WKU Baseball program, equipped with new locker rooms, weight room, team room, coaches' offices and hitting facility with four batting cages and a flexible multi-use space.

"We are deeply appreciative of Tim and Sarah Ford and the countless contributions they consistently make. They both have invested considerable time and resources into the lives of our student-athletes," Stewart said. " … Players come and go, coaches come and go, administrators come and go, but buildings remain. The Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse will have a generational impact because it will enable our current athletes to train at a much higher and more efficient level, while it will also enable our sport programs to recruit at a higher level."

The Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse will serve as the permanent home for the WKU Forensics program and provide the program with modern classroom, practice, office and competition space to allow it to continue its run of excellence as the most dominant collegiate speech and debate organization in the country.

"It is an awe-inspiring space that genuinely honors the competitive excellence our program has forged for over the past century while preparing the next generation of students to compete and win over the next," Newman said.

The Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse will house the WKU Esports program and equips the team with a state-of-the-art competition space, practice pods and offices. 

"When you see that sign in the competition room that says "Climb Higher," that is our goal," Todd said. "We are going to climb higher, because now we have one of the best facilities in the nation, and we are so proud of it and we are so happy."

The new facility will also become the base for the Big Red Marching Band, with dedicated storage and support space for the band, as well as a venue for year-round, all-weather practice.

"Today, as we cut the ribbon on this new facility, there are three words that come to mind to define this moment and our future – opportunity, growth and commitment," McCurry said. "For 100 years, this program has created opportunities for students to discover their talents and their potential, but today, that opportunity expands in a very real way. This facility, complete with a full 100-yard field, gives our students a chance to rehearse without limits, to build their skills and to push themselves to new levels that they have yet to define."

The Board of Regents approved the project in June 2022, and renderings for the Hilltopper Fieldhouse, as well as the new Football press box, were revealed during the WKU Board of Regents committee meetings in October 2023. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse was held in November 2023, and a beam raising ceremony for the new building took place in April 2025.

At a special-called WKU Board of Regents meeting on September 25, 2025, the philanthropic naming of the new state-of-the-art Fieldhouse was approved as the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse. Cornerstone Partners for the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse include Romeo and Rosemary Crennel and Dennis and Leslie Koon.

The Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse was designed by K. Norman Berry Associates, Brown + Kubican Structural Engineers and Kerr Greulich Engineers, Incorporated, and construction is being done by Reeves Young and the WKU Planning, Design and Construction Team.

Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse Quick Facts

• Serve as the permanent home to the WKU Forensics program and provide the program with modern classroom, practice, office and competition space to allow it to continue its run of excellence as the most dominant collegiate speech and debate organization in the country.
• House the WKU Esports program and equip them with state-of-the-art competition space, practice pods and offices.
• Become the new base for the Big Red Marching Band program with dedicated storage and support space for the band, as well as a venue for year-round, all-weather practice.
• Include a new 21,000-square-foot WKU Baseball clubhouse with locker rooms, weight room, team room, coaches' offices and a hitting facility with four batting cages and a flexible multi-purpose space.
• Incorporate an 87,000-square-foot indoor training facility for use by the Big Red Marching Band, WKU Athletics, Intramurals and the greater WKU community.

For more information on the Tim and Sarah Ford Fieldhouse, visit wkusports.com/FordFieldhouse.