‘Best place in town’: The Podium aids area track and field programs during indoor season
Until a few years ago, it was common for this area’s indoor track and field teams to spend many winter weekends on the road.
There were meets in Seattle. Others in Moscow, Idaho. Sometimes they would go to California or other western states to see more competition and to compete in different venues.
But all that changed significantly when the Podium was built in downtown Spokane.
“It’s a good thing for Spokane. It’s a good thing for our programs,” Whitworth track and field coach Toby Schwarz said. “It’s basically the best place in town.”
Finished just more than two years ago at a cost of $53 million, the 135,000-square foot facility has hosted many events, from handball to wrestling to volleyball . The Spokane Sports Commission has aspirations to recruit, retain and facilitate even more events.
Throughout this winter, the Podium will be busy hosting indoor track and field meets, with this weekend’s Spokane Sports Showcase and Spokane Indoor Challenge next on the slate.
For the indoor teams at Whitworth, Eastern Washington and Gonzaga, the facility has been a game-changer.
“Having the Podium was a huge selling point when I came in,” EWU head coach Erin Tucker said. “It was something that really stuck in my head.”
Tucker took over the Eagles’ track and field program in 2022 following two decades as an assistant coach at Illinois, Kentucky and Penn State. He said there are a number of benefits to having the Podium just a 25-minute drive from the school’s campus in Cheney, many of them financial.
“We would be spending so much more money if we didn’t have the Podium,” he said.
Four years ago, EWU’s indoor schedule featured three meets at the Kibbie Dome in Moscow, two trips to Seattle and then trips to Nampa, Idaho, and to Pocatello, Idaho, for the Big Sky Championships.
Generally, the more athletes a team brings to a meet, the more expensive it is, and so developmental athletes don’t get as many opportunities to compete. But in the past two seasons that has changed for the Eagles because it is much less expensive to compete at a nearby venue like the Podium.
Eastern is certainly leaning into it: Its indoor schedule started there, with December’s Spokane Invitational, and between now and the end of February the Eagles will compete at the Podium five more times, culminating in the Big Sky Championships Feb. 22-24.
“Having the Podium here, everyone on our team gets to compete every week,” Tucker said.
It is a similar story for the Division III program Whitworth, which spends even more time at the Podium by practicing at the facility twice a week for eight weeks of the season.
Whitworth has never had an indoor facility to speak of, Schwarz said, elevating what the program can offer its athletes during the winter season.
“To be able to compete nationally, you’ve got to have the facilities, and now we have that,” Schwarz said. “That’s huge.”
Whitworth is hosting two events at the Podium this season: the Inland Northwest Invitational on Jan. 27 and the Whitworth Invitational on Feb. 9-10. Hosting is significant, Schwarz said, because it gives the Pirates more control over the meet. They get to invite the teams they want to see, and they can send as many athletes as they want to compete.
Schwarz said he tells programs like Eastern Oregon, Lewis-Clark State College and others of similar profiles that if they come to the meet, they can enter anyone they want.
Yet the meets draw many other programs from up and down the West Coast, which means that Whitworth’s athletes get to compete against Division I athletes from the Big Sky, Mountain West and Pac-12, and that elevates the program’s profile when it comes to recruiting, Schwarz said.
There are also the benefits of missing class less often and avoiding potential travel headaches, as well as opportunities to host alumni at Whitworth’s meets.
All of that makes the cost of hosting – about $10,000 when it’s all said and done, Schwarz estimated – well worth it compared to spending approximately the same amount to travel fewer athletes to a meet elsewhere.
It is a similar situation for Gonzaga’s indoor team, which will compete five weekends at the Podium this winter.
“It’s been a huge bonus for us to not have to worry about traveling as much during the winter as we once did,” Gonzaga women’s track and field coach Jake Stewart said. “Even (going) down to Moscow could sometimes be a little bit dicey.”
Gonzaga’s athletes practice once a week at the Podium, with an added benefit: If the weather is good, they can make their warmup a jog from campus to the track.
“Every year, hopefully we can continue to build,” Stewart said. “One of the things that’s been really cool in the first few years of the Podium is just the willingness (of coaches) to come together and try to set things up. I’m constantly having conversations with meet directors and coaches in the area.”
At the center of many of those conversations is Anna Alsept, director of sports management for the Spokane Sports Commission.
“All these different college programs share in the pride that the Podium is their home base,” Alsept said.
Born and raised in Spokane, Alsept ran track and competed in other sports at Northwest Christian. If the Podium had existed 10 or 15 years ago, she said, she probably would have been there often.
“This facility is a prime example,” Alsept said, “of (the phrase), ‘If you build it, they will come.’ ”
College coaches will often bring recruits to see the facility, Alsept said, and many high school programs book time there to practice. They can also compete: On Jan. 20-21, the Podium will host the Spokane High School Invitational for a third time.
It is these partnerships – with colleges, high schools and the community at large – and an eagerness to work together that has coaches and the Spokane Sports Commission optimistic that the potential of the Podium has yet to be fully tapped.
“To have this tool on the West Coast has been amazing,” Alsept said, “and (it is) a game-changer for so many different programs and teams.”