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UI soccer, track teams' new permanent home ends 30-year wait

Related Topics: Janet Rayfield

CHAMPAIGN — Illinois track and field has been without a truly permanent home for 30 years after one round of Memorial Stadium renovations in the late 1980s removed the track.

Those programs have instead bounced around campus — the Arboretum for cross-country and the Armory for indoor track and field — while sharing a facility on St. Mary's Road the past 20 years after women's soccer was added at Illinois.

Wednesday's announcement of the plans for Demirjian Park — that true home for both Illini soccer and track and field — is the culmination of something athletic director Josh Whitman said was essentially 20 and 30 years, respectively, in the making.