Starting next year, Point Park will sponsor two new teams: men’s and women’s track and field. While there is an immediate benefit of adding a new program – attracting a new demographic of student athletes to the University – the real story is that Point Park is continuing to expand its athletic opportunities, something it has done every four or five years since 2000.Since the start of the 2005 school year, there have been four new teams added: women’s soccer and golf, along with the new track and field teams. And another program, men’s golf, was revived after an extended hiatus. Since the turn of the millennium, Point Park has more than doubled the number of sports teams it sponsors, from six to 13. Point Park’s commitment to expanding the athletic department is happening for two reasons. One is the University continues to grow. The other is the programs they have in place are succeeding.This season, men’s soccer earned its second straight berth to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) tournament. Baseball is going to open the season ranked nationally at 19th. Women’s basketball is off to the best start in its history. If these teams were not succeeding, the athletic department’s main priority would be fixing the product they are putting on the field, not expansion.Success is not expected to come immediately to the track and field team, though. It took women’s soccer eight seasons before it earned its first trip to the conference finals. The men’s golf team has gone through some tough times over the past few years as well. But these programs were young and showed signs of brilliance, and now they appear to be poised to contend in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) for a long time.Hopefully the same will happen to the track and field teams as well, and within a graduating class or two, Point Park can boast its newest team’s success.