Terps Slide Into New Training Home
Stanley Bobb Baseball Performance Center Celebrates Grand Opening
The new Stanley Bobb Baseball Performance Center, which celebrated its grand opening this week, features defined areas for pitchers and hitters and technology upgrades for increased analytics.
Photos by Ian Cox/Maryland Terrapins
The University of Maryland baseball program has a history of honing home-run talent—just ask former Terps in the pros like Brandon Lowe, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Matt Shaw. Now, the team has a new space to perfect its pitches and strengthen its swings, even as the snow lingers from last week’s storm.
Less than a year after it broke ground, the new Stanley Bobb Baseball Performance Center opened its doors for its grand opening this week, allowing student-athletes to train year-round in a climate-controlled environment. The 8,500-square-foot facility, part of Maryland Athletics’ Building Champions initiative to renovate spaces across sports, features defined areas for pitchers and hitters and technology upgrades for increased analytics.
Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics Damon Evans speaks to the UMD baseball team at the grand opening of the new Stanley Bobb Baseball Performance Center.
“When you tell someone, ‘Hey, I'm going to coach you better than X, Y and Z at the top programs in the country, I truly believe that I am, but you have to be able to have a space to do so,” head coach Matt Swope said. “If a kid can come here on campus and feel like they're gonna get better, then that's all that matters.”
The facility is named after the late Stanley Bobb ’57, who pitched for the Terps from 1954-57 and is a Greater Washington Jewish Sports Hall of Fame member. He was the starting pitcher in the dedication game at then-Shipley Field in 1954 against Dartmouth, winning on a six-hitter.
“He was an entrepreneur who made a difference in so many people’s lives,” said Damon Evans, the Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics. “A true family man, Stanley often pointed to his three children and 12 grandchildren as his proudest accomplishment. We are honored to have his name emblazoned on our new Stanley Bobb Baseball Performance Center.”
With its tech upgrades and pressure-mapping equipment, the center allows Swope, who popularized the “motor preferences” training style tailored toward athletes’ unique movement patterns, to incorporate more data into his coaching approach.
“It’s something we are unbelievably grateful to have,” redshirt sophomore left-handed pitcher Kyle McCoy said, “and it’s a credit to all the people before us who made it possible for us to maximize our abilities to be the best players we can be out on the field.”
After the Terps won Big Ten titles in 2022 and 2023, the new center will help foster further success on the field, senior infielder Eddie Hacopian said.
“We are pretty fired up to get in there and start working,” he said. “The Maryland baseball program deserves this. The culture has always been about winning. Right when I got here, I noticed it. Losing doesn’t fly. We look forward to making some noise in the Big Ten and the rest of the country this year.”
See more info and photos at umterps.com.
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