MUNCIE — A new era of Ball State athletics was made official on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Ball State coaches, student-athletes, trustees, donors and several others gathered outside of Worthen Arena for a ribbon cutting ceremony dedicated to the Eric Foss Championship Performance Center.
Adjacent to the Dr. Don Shondell Practice Center inside of Worthen, the Foss Center is a brand new, 11,000-square-foot training facility featuring state-of-the-art strength and conditioning spaces, performance and training zones dedicated to specific sports, recovery areas, an extensive nutrition bar and office spaces for athletics staff.
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The Foss Center was approved in 2024 and made possible thanks to a donation from 1980 Ball State graduate Eric Foss, the executive chairman of Primo Brands Corporation and the primary benefactor for the new facility.
"Today is a great day to be a Cardinal," Ball State athletic director Jeff Mitchell told the assembled crowd. "As we reveal this state-of-the-art facility, we unveil far more than new equipment and elite training spaces. We emphasize the standard of excellence that will be established inside these walls, and it will propel Ball State athletics for decades to come."
Naturally, the people most excited about the new facility are Ball State's current student-athletes and their coaches. Since the facility's completion in recent weeks, the university's various teams have had opportunities to explore their new training ground and take in all that the center has to offer.
Senior softball player Maia Pietrzak spoke to the crowd on behalf of Ball State student-athletes and expressed immense gratitude for the new facility and the university's commitment to athletics. She highlighted the new Keiser Machines' abilities to track strength and power outputs, the laser-based Velocity Based Training (VBT) units, and the recovery room's massage chairs as a few examples of what the new facility offers.
"I've been completing an internship, interning with the football conditioning staff and seeing the football players' hard work, and I've worked a bit with the tennis programs as well," Peitrzak said. "I just think that this group of student-athletes are so deserving of this space, and they're the type of people that are really going to capitalize on it. I just can't wait to see how this is going to motivate us and the impact that it's going to have out on the court or out on the field."
Women's basketball coach Brady Sallee — one of several Cardinal coaches in attendance — recently got to take his players into the Foss Center for the first time. According to Sallee, his team has already made great use of the facility and were amazed by its capabilities.
"We got in earlier this week, and they just look at it like, 'Holy cow, this is ours?'" Sallee said. "It can't help but motivate and help have kids think the way that we want them to. I mean, this is a Power 4 facility right here on Ball State's campus, and so for athletes to be able to take advantage of the technology and the space that just exudes excellence ... When you see where we were working out compared to where we are now, it's literally like going from a Volkswagen to a Cadillac."
Another team that was thrilled to see the new center was the baseball team. Head coach Rich Maloney said that he previously avoided bringing some recruits into the baseball team's old weight room because it had fallen behind some of their peers. He firmly believes that his team's strength training will benefit tremendously from the Foss Center and also highlighted the importance of the new facility as a recruiting tool for future Cardinals athletes.
"This right here is just a transformation. I'm so excited for our student-athletes and for our coaches because now, when we recruit, we can bring somebody in and they go, 'Wow!' That's a factor that's so important in recruiting." Maloney said. "And then strength training, I've always attributed a lot of the success we've been fortunate to have in our baseball program to strength training.
"There's a lot of times at mid-majors, you're taking players who are late bloomers. Our strength training people have done a marvelous job over the years, and now they have a facility that really enhances what we're already doing well with limited resources."
Men's basketball player K'Jei Parker also attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. Parker transferred to Ball State this offseason from UMass, another MAC school, and offered a comparison between the Cardinals' new facility and that of one of their conference peers.
"UMass had a great facility, but this one is a little bit bigger," Parker said. "A lot of people use this one, but as far as the equipment and everything like that, we have everything here. Coming in the summertime, we saw it, it was up, but we couldn't go inside and see how it was. Each and every day, it's something to look forward to. We'll be back tomorrow early in the morning."
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: What the Eric Foss Championship Performance Center means for Ball State athletes