After a five-year absence, Stevenson University announced on Wednesday that it is bringing back track and field as an intercollegiate sport, raising the number of NCAA Division III sports
offered by the school to 20.

The University will sponsor indoor track and field for men and women beginning with the 2010-11 season with the goal of also adding men's and women's outdoor track in the spring.

"Track and field was one of the first sports we offered at Stevenson when we began intercollegiate athletics during the 1994-95 academic year," said 17-year Director of Athletics Brett Adams. "As we continue toward the University's goal of reaching 4,000 students, it made sense to re-establish the sport for both men and women as it will compliment our growing cross country program and provide more opportunities for prospective student-athletes."

Adding track and field will also allow Stevenson to earn more points in the race for the Richard C. Cook All-Sports Award which is presented annually to the best overall athletic program in the CAC. The award is based on the number of points accumulated by a team's finish in the conference standings and championships in the 19 sports offered by the CAC.

The 1994-95 indoor track and field team consisted of 13 student-athletes, 11 women and two men, who competed in five invitationals with its first competition coming at Towson on Dec. 10, 1994. The program expanded to include outdoor track in the spring of 2002, but that lasted just one season.

Meanwhile, indoor track continued until the 2003-04 season before it was discontinued.

The team will be led by Becky Parks who took over as the head coach of the men's and women's cross country programs this fall, guiding the men to a seventh-place finish at the CAC Cross Country Championships. The women placed eighth while both teams competed at the NCAA Division III Mideast Region Championships for the second-straight year.

"After making much progress and the team having great improvements during cross country, I'm really excited to continue our forward momentum into track," said Parks. "The two seasons really complement each other well and it will be exciting to see how much speed our cross country runners have. I know that they will be great leaders going into indoor and outdoor track."

Parks has already begun preparations for this season as the team held its first practice on Monday and she has already put together a six-meet schedule beginning with the Terrapin Invitational in Landover on January 22.

The current roster consists of current students, including some dual-sport athletes from other sports, but Parks is hoping to add to that number through recruiting and spreading the word on campus and enlisting other interested students.

"In addition to our distance runners from cross country, we also have a lot of mid-distance and sprinters coming out, whether from football, soccer, or just runners who competed in high school," said Parks.  "Having seen the amount of raw talent my team has just from the first week of practice, I absolutely cannot wait to see how we match up with other collegiate teams."

Track and field is the latest offering to be added to the University's list of intercollegiate sports after the addition of football this fall and women's golf last spring. Plans to add a fourth sport are expected to be announced later this year.