Welcome Stadium renovations allow district to host OHSAA track, field tournament

DAYTON — A statewide high school sporting competition will take place at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium next year.

>>PREVIOUS REPORTING: State track and field championship coming to Dayton

Last week, members of the Dayton Public School Board of Education voted unanimously to bring the 2024 Ohio High School Athletic Association track and field championship to Dayton.

Typically, the annual tournament is held at The Ohio State University’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, but that stadium will be getting a track replacement in May, a spokesperson from OHSAA said.

This project will take several months to complete, the spokesperson said.

“We, at Ohio State, are moving forward with a complete track replacement at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. Construction will take place from May to September 2024. Unfortunately, we will not be able to host the 2024 State Track Meet, but we look forward to hosting again in 2025 and beyond,” Executive Associate Athletics Director for Internal Operations Mike Penner said.

Welcome Stadium has previously hosted OHSAA track and field tournaments, which took place in 1999-2003. This followed the track removal from Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

The tournament will return to Ohio State University in 2025 and 2026, the spokesperson said.

After Dayton Public School’s Welcome Stadium’s $34 million renovation was completed, it became an ideal spot to host a tournament of this magnitude.

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“We are very impressed with the renovations at Welcome Stadium. It’s great to see what Dayton Public Schools has done to the facility and they were very excited right away when we called. We are fortunate that the timing of these construction projects lined up so that Welcome Stadium was ready to host before Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium was unavailable.” OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute said.

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