By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Are there enough courts and fields for all of the teams in Crawford County? In the minds of the coaches and parents at the Sports Entertainment and Tourism Complex public forum Wednesday night, the answer was a resounding no.
Don Schumacher, Executive Director of the National Association of Sports Commission, hosted the public forum which centered around the needs of baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer in the county.
“We started talking to Don back in October,” explained Gary Frankhouse, Crawford County’s Economic Development Coordinator. “Over the last two days we’ve been out to every high school, we’ve talked to all the superintendents, all of the AD’s. We talked to both Y directors and we’ve gotten a lot of their input.”
Frankhouse said they felt it was equally important to get the opinions of the community, which often times differs in that of the school officials.
“We’re trying to take stock of what is in terms of sports facilities in the county with particular and in fact sole interest in whether they are tournament ready or not,” Schumacher said. “We need to know community unmet needs.”
Many of the coaches and parents in attendance agreed that one of the biggest unmet needs was the lack of indoor baseball and softball facilities for the fall and winter. Parents will often travel an hour or further to provide their children with such opportunities.
“For most of us, we’re trying to teach the fundamentals in the closet basically,” said Jason McMullen. “We’re lucky to have a batting cage. So for me I think it’s more that – having somewhere indoors. I think it could start in September, quite frankly. There’s a lot of kids that choose not to play football or a fall sport that want to start working on the baseball fundamentals.”
It was agreed, however, that the county was strong in its baseball and softball fields at Aumiller Park in Bucyrus and Peco Park in Galion.
Another major unmet need in the county was the lack of available court space, not only for basketball but also for volleyball. Sarah Wegesin, a softball and basketball coach in Galion, said it was extremely hard to fight for court time in the school gyms, a sentiment that was echoed by multiple coaches.
“I cannot drive to Marion three or four times a week to provide her the practice she would require to continue in travel ball. But if there’s something local, you better believe I’m going to do it,” Wegesin said.
“It just excites me that kids will have the opportunities locally to get indoor facilities so we’re not leaving the county and basically taking our business elsewhere,” she added. “My biggest excitement about bringing a complex like this to our county would be the benefits to our community: the revenue, new business opportunities. It’s kind of where my heart lies. I love sports but I definitely want to see our community grow.”
“I think that’s one of the things coming back to this area,” said Christy Novak, who recently moved to Crestline from Cleveland. “I only have one child and she’s only second grade but I was an athlete myself and I look around and I don’t know where we’re going. You can go to the Y but get kicked off the courts.”
“I can’t go to the Y and shoot around with my daughter because there’s already something there,” she added.
“I feel based on a day-and-a-half, two half-days and looking at all the courts you need more courts – no matter what anybody tells you,” Schumacher said.
Coaches discussed the fight they have to get practice and game times at the schools for their younger teams. It’s those teams that suffer from the lack of court space and can lead to fewer athletes continuing into the high school level.
“You tell me that there are enough courts of the high school kids, I say great,” Schumacher said. “But we’re not going to have enough basketball players if the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders can’t practice as well.
“All of us,” Schumacher added,” are acutely aware of one of the big objectives we have with facility development and that is engaging young people to be physically active and enjoy it. We just need more courts to do that.”
Schumacher gave a rough sketch of what the sports complex could possibly handle: an artificial turf baseball field, an artificial turf softball field, an indoor facility that has multiple courts, and a large turf field that could be used for baseball and softball infield practice, hitting, pitching, soccer, and whatever else could be imagined.
“That’s the kind of facility that kind of touches the buttons we’ve been talking to the last couple of days,” Schumacher. “As parents, as coaches, and as interested residents of the community you want kids to have every opportunity to try what they’re interested in trying.”
The sports complex will, however, be defined by the population and the demographics of the county.
“It’s simply not smart to invest in something that you don’t need,” Schumacher said.
“We have to determine what we need before we can start figuring out the cost we could possibly have,” Frankhouse said.