Adam Zobel

Coughlin-Alumni Stadium has been selected to be the new home of the SDSU mud-running team, displacing the football team from the venerable stadium.

Mud-running is the latest sport to take the Midwest by storm with mud-run race rallies this past summer in Woonsocket and Huron, drawing thousands of South Dakotans from across the state and earning extensive television media coverage in the competitive Sioux Falls market. The sport, which is drag racing of modified trucks and SUVs through a muddy track, has achieved a great deal of fame and has now spawned collegiate competition in some regional schools.

The growing prominence of the sport, fueled by the celebrity of all-Jim River Valley driver Patricia “Plodder” Pontiac-Putzman and a trendy practice of beer and alcohol consumption at rallies, has prompted SDSU officials to add mud-running as a revenue sport that will enable the school to change conferences and enhance its status as a progressive institution of higher excellence in all areas.

“SDSU will be able to keep its reputation as a school that is the epitome of rural American lifestyles” was the quote heard at a meeting of SDSU mud-running boosters at Jim’s Tap.

Work by the SDSU maintenance staff to convert the stadium into a mud-running facility will begin after the conclusion of spring football practices with the first mud-run at SDSU to be scheduled for Memorial Day weekend.

The city of Brookings, which benefits from added visitor spending, will also contribute a portion of the cost for the refurbishment of the stadium. This money will come from the new municipal beer garden that will be located outside the stadium.

“We are excited that SDSU and the city of Brookings have made the commitment needed to make mud-running the NASCAR of the north,” Pontiac-Putzman said in an exclusive press release to the Collegian.

Despite the removal from its home of about two generations, members of the football team are upbeat and accepting of the changes to the Jackrabbit athletic program.

“It’ll be cool for us to drink some beers and watch the mud runs after those two-a-day practices in training camp,” reserve cameraman Tommie “X-Factor” Jailman said.

“We knew that there was no such thing as a sacred cow at SDSU when we committed to playing football here,” sophomore fifth-string quarterback Bryce Q. Hopscotch said. “Even the football team occasionally has to make sacrifices for the good of the university.”

The football team is now considering several area sites for their games until a new facility can be constructed from the proceeds of mud-run events. Possible sites for the 2003 season of Jackrabbit football include the SDSU rugby pitch, and Brookings High School.

“Regardless of where we play next season, I can assure you that Jackrabbit football will continue its long-standing tradition of entertaining fans and allowing students to hone their alcohol-drinking skills,” Hopscotch said.

#1.887075:3114340342.jpg:CaughlinAlumni.jpg:Coughlin-Alumni Stadium will soon become a pit of mud and dirt.: