Elmer Gray Stadium, home to ACU soccer and track and field, is getting its first major overhaul since it opened in 2015, a $1.7 million project funded entirely by outside donors rather than the university.

From 1955 to 2014, track and field events were held at the original Elmer Gray Stadium site, now occupied by Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium. The stadium’s namesake, Elmer Gray, was a 1932 ACU graduate and the first Wildcat to compete in the Olympic Trials, running the half-mile in 1932.

The modern-era Elmer Gray Stadium had construction crews begin tearing out the original purple track surface in May, and the work goes beyond a simple resurface. The new track will flip the stadium’s color scheme to primarily gray with purple exchange zones, add sprint shoots on the back stretch to match the ones already on the west side, and redo the event runways for the long jump, high jump, triple jump and pole vault.

Zack Lassiter, vice president for athletics, said he doesn’t have an exact completion date in mind but expects the track to be ready when the outdoor track and field season starts. Furthermore, he said he isn’t worried about the timeline.

A new video board is coming to the stadium as a separate phase of the project, with installation set for late October.

That timing means the video board will be in place for the back half of the soccer season, then carry into a full track and field slate, including the Wes Kittley Invitational and the high school regional meets ACU hosts each year.

Lassiter said the late-October timing came down to how things lined up between donor commitments, approvals and the nature of the construction itself. The department wanted the board in place for at least a couple of soccer games this fall, which put a target somewhere in the mid-October range.

Lassiter said the new track gives the program a state-of-the-art facility it didn’t have before, one that keeps ACU on par with, or ahead of, other UAC programs and allows the Wildcats to compete facility-wise with some of the largest track and field programs in the country.

There are no plans for a ribbon-cutting or reveal event once the project wraps up, Lassiter said.

The stadium’s current scoreboard will stay in place on the side of the stadium closest to Poly Wells Field and Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium. The new video board will go up on the opposite side, closest to Moody Coliseum.