Chapel Hill's Boshamer Stadium, which has played host to five ACC tournaments, multiple NCAA regional tournaments, and one of the eight 2007 NCAA Super Regionals, has seen its final game under its current setup. The UNC ballpark, which hosted its first game in March, 1972, will be reconstructed and expanded.

Although some fans might be a little bit sad to see the current Boshamer Stadium setup go away, UNC head coach Mike Fox, for one, is ready for a new ball park. He is pleased that the powers that be at North Carolina were able to find a way to build the expanded stadium, which will expand the chair-back seating capacity to approximately 4,000, on the same location as the current park.

"It's not going to be too nostalgic for me," Fox said. "I'm ready for the new one. I'm glad it's right here. I'm more grateful our administration decided not to move it, more than anything else. Probably I'm looking most forward to all these wires (from the light towers) coming down. I'm looking forward to it looking cleaner."

While Boshamer has undergone multiple renovations in recent years, including expanded dugouts, a new training room, a new field tarp, and awnings over the baseball offices and press box, the biggest issue with the current setup was its lack of seating.

The stadium currently holds approximately 3,000 seats, and with the rising interest in Tar Heel baseball thanks to back-to-back ACC Coastal Division titles and College World Series berths, the time was right to raise the necessary money to fund an expansion project.

"We hit the right time, had a little bit of success and got some publicity," Fox said.

According to boshamer.com, the official fundraising website for Boshamer Stadium, approximately 15 million of the 17 million dollars necessary to expand the stadium has been raised. With the capital already in place, the wheels can begin turning on this project relatively quickly.

The new stadium, which is expected to be ready by next season, will include club level suites, a coaches' office suite, a new television booth, new radio booths, and a press suite/hospitality area. Some of the other features include new locker rooms and a weight facility, a wider concourse with extra bathrooms and concession areas, larger dugouts, an outdoor covered hitting and pitching facility, advanced irrigation and drainage components, a padded outfield wall, and a new lighting system.

While the fundraising has gone smoothly for the most part, there have been some minor delays with the project as it works through the construction bidding process. While Fox does not see the wrecking ball coming to demolish the old Boshamer as the Tar Heels are in the midst of their College World Series run this weekend, the project will most likely begin later this month.

"Unfortunately, we opened the contractor bids and they were a little higher than expected. That has kind of thrown a kink in it a little bit. I'm not sure the wrecking ball will be here June 15 to totally knock it down. We're going to get it done, but we've had a few setbacks because construction and building here is such a challenge. We've raised a lot of money," Fox said.

While this past weekend's Super Regional may very well endure as the lasting memory of the old Boshamer Stadium, during his own playing career at UNC, Fox took part in another memorable event at the stadium. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, whose daughter attended North Carolina, brought his franchise to Boshamer for exhibition games against the Tar Heels. Fox was UNC's second basemen when the Yankees came in 1977, a year in which they went on to win the World Series.

"They were coming from Tampa to New York from spring training," Fox said about the first exhibition game. "I remember people everywhere. I remember we had to clean out our lockers. I remember getting people to carry their bags down the steps because they wouldn't carry them. I think I carried them down. I remember standing in the outfield next to Lou Pinella during batting practice. "I remember them going back in the back during the rain delay and playing cards in the showers. They stacked trash cans up so none of [the media] could get to them. They were trying to hide from everybody. There were people everywhere."

As students hung from outside their dorm rooms at Ehringhaus Hall, which overlooks the stadium, Fox faced Yankees starter Ron Guidry, who went on to win the American League Cy Young Award in 1978.

"I remember facing Ron Guidry, and fouling a pitch off," Fox said. "That's about all I did," he jokingly recalled.

As the Yankees were on their way to winning a second-straight World Series title in 1978, the UNC baseball team, with Fox as the starting second basemen, became the first of four College World Series Tar Heel teams that Boshamer Stadium hosted. Fox's UNC experience came full circle last season as he led his alma mater to Chapel Hill Regional and Super Regional victories, and the program's first CWS in 17 years.

Prior to his team's victory in this past weekend's Super Regional, Fox let his kids know that they were in a prime position to send out the old Boshamer in true style.

"I emailed our kids and I told them I don't think it's by coincidence that we're cutting down trees and we've got ESPN in here," Fox said. "I want them to think that maybe this is destiny. This is maybe the way it is supposed to work out to send this stadium off. It's kind of neat with all the publicity. I hope it was meant to be. I wish Coach (Walter) Rabb was here to see it. We have a lot of former players wanting to come back in. I want them to relish it; I want them to enjoy it. We have to focus on enjoying it and not what is at stake. I told them it is not a coincidence that we're going to send Boshamer out that way."