MOSCOW, Idaho – Jill and Matt McCluskey and media members from around the region received a look at the new Lauren McCluskey track in the Kibbie Dome at the University of Idaho.
There will be a ribbon cutting for the track ahead of the 2023 Lauren McCluskey Invite in January, but Thursday provided the family and media members a chance to see the facility in person before it is covered with turf before the start of football and soccer practice in the coming weeks.
Idaho began hosting the Lauren McCluskey Open in 2019 after Lauren's tragic murder in 2018. With the new surface in place and support from Mondo and the McCluskey family, the 2023 Invite will look to expand to a premiere event. The goal of the naming of the track and of the Invite is to honor Lauren and her legacy. She was a student-athlete at the University of Utah but grew up in Pullman and trained extensively at the Kibbie Dome during her youth.
The track features a Mondotrack Super X surface. Mondo produced the track surface for the last six Summer Olympic games and over 290 world records have been set on Mondo products. The track was installed by Idaho-based Wall 2 Wall Commercial Flooring.
Included in the infield for the 300-meter track large University of Idaho branding and lettering that include Lauren's name was integrated into the track design. It is the largest logo ever integrated into a track and field system.
The south side of the dome floor, inside of the track, where Vandal basketball played for decades, is now the home of Idaho tennis. Four competition courts will take the spot of the former Cowan Spectrum.
The new surface provides a permanent home for the Vandals tennis to train and compete and give unprecedented access for fans and spectators to watch duals. With 8,000 seats on the south side of the Kibbie Dome, it has one of the largest seating capacities of any collegiate tennis facility in the country.
The McCluskeys received settlement funds from the University of Utah and its insurers, who acknowledged that they should have done more to protect Lauren. The family has pledged to donate the entire settlement to support the missions of the Lauren McCluskey Foundation, which include improving campus safety, supporting amateur athletics and animal welfare. The donation to the University of Idaho is directly from the McCluskeys and not from the Lauren McCluskey Foundation.
