Fulfilling the Dream

Clay Gould 1971-2001

Clay Gould believed that if you build it, they will come. The ballpark. The players. The championships. With Gould's dream as the starting point, UTA has launched a $1.5 million renovation program to transform the current ballpark into a state-of-the-art facility where UTA baseball players will compete against the nation's best.

Plans include adding an extensive lighting system to allow for night games, increasing the seating capacity from 1,200 to 1,400 and designing a new entrance for the complex.

In only his second year as Mavericks baseball coach, Gould guided his team to the Southland Conference Tournament championship. The Mavericks finished the 2001 season with 39 wins—one shy of a school record—and won the University's first-ever NCAA Tournament game.

Ballpark renovation campaign co-chairs: Tom Cravens, left, and Chris Carroll.

And though Gould's life and career were cut short by cancer at age 29, his dream remains. The baseball stadium is a big part of that dream.

After Gould's death in June, political science Associate Professor Allan Saxe, the ballpark's current namesake, requested that the stadium be renamed to honor the beloved coach.

"He was a baseball player," Dr. Saxe said. "The players can associate much more with him. Players of today and tomorrow will be able to identify with his name, and the community knows it as well."

The renaming must be approved by the U.T. System Board of Regents.

Current plans call for completion of the ballpark renovations by spring 2003. Once the Clay Gould baseball stadium project is finished, the fans will come. And Clay will surely be there in spirit, too.

To be part of the building process, please contact:
David Wolf, UTA Director of Development
Box 19198 Arlington, Texas 76019
817-272-5111
davidwolf@uta.edu

Ballpark rendering by UTA
Architecture Professor Richard Ferrier