Claremont McKenna College has begun constructing its new multimillion dollar sports facility, currently referred to as the Sports Bowl, for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) athletics.
The first phases of development will provide CMS sports teams with new fields for baseball, softball, track, football and lacrosse, as well as running paths and a golf practice facility.
The construction of the Sports Bowl is part of a larger CMC project to double its campus size through the construction of the Roberts Campus, which will be carried out in multiple phases.
Phase one of the expansion began in 2022 with the construction of the Robert Day Sciences Center, which houses the Kravis Center of Integrated Sciences. The initiative continues with the Sports Bowl, which will sit north of the Robert Day Sciences Center; it will take the place of a previously vacant 75-acre gravel plot on the eastern side of Pitzer College and CMC.
The Sports Bowl was intended to be ready for use in the fall of 2024, but the opening date has since been postponed to spring 2026. Despite the facility’s uncertain timeline, Helena Paulin, director of brand marketing and strategy at CMC, highlighted the opportunities it will offer in the future.
“CMC and CMS are hopeful that the new baseball field will be ready to host its first games sometime in spring 2026, with the remaining venues anticipated to open in 2027,” Paulin wrote in an email to TSL.
Although many CMS games and practices will be hosted at the Sports Bowl, Roberts Pavilion — CMC’s existing athletic facility — will remain a central space for all CMS athletics.
“The Sports Bowl is not intended to replace Roberts Pavilion in any way,” Paulin said, “Roberts Pavilion is and will remain the ‘physical’ home of CMS while the Sports Bowl will provide a home and support for many of the outdoor athletic facilities that is comparable to the quality we have established at Roberts.”
In 2022, the construction of the Roberts Day Science Center replaced CMS’s old baseball field, leaving the team without a home turf for the past several years.
Since then, baseball athletes’ practices have included a nearly hour-long round trip to Azusa Pacific University for their practices once a week.
CMS baseball player Keegan Cabrera HM ’28 explained the difficulty this extra time commitment has presented and how the new facilities would mitigate this.
“Having access to [the facilities] all the time will just make us better in the long run,” Cabrera said. “We’ll be able to work on more situational things that are for the game. Right now, we can only practice once a week, but if we are able to do that more often, then I think it’ll just set us up for a better season.”
CMS baseball player Henry Connell HM ’25 said that he thinks a shared CMS facility will encourage relationships between different teams and strengthen the 5C community overall.
“I think having a field will help foster a better community around CMS, baseball and other sports,” Connell said.
Cabrera shared similar sentiments, explaining that a closer home field will also allow more 5C students to come support the baseball team and build community. He added that it can be hard for friends to sit in at games when they have busy schedules and don’t want to drive far away from campus.
“If you have a field that’s a five-minute walk, I think they’re more inclined to come over and watch,” Cabrera said.
Though Connell won’t see the completion of the baseball field in his time left at Harvey Mudd, he hopes that it improves how much people know and care about CMS athletics.
“I hope that it’ll kind of foster better attendance and just kind of give students a chance to experience what it’s like to have sports teams that play on campus,” Connell said.
Other sports will also be seeing an upgrade in facilities within the coming years through the development of the Sports Bowl. CMS lacrosse player Winnie Macaulay SC ’28 said that the new lacrosse field will be an improvement from the current facility behind Roberts Pavilion.
The current grass field that the lacrosse team plays on is shared between the CMS football team and the track and field teams. Their new field will be made of turf, which Macaulay said will be an upgrade in safety and quality.
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