Scott Swanson
Sweet Home High School football Coach Dustin Nichol and others are working to generate community support for an artificial turf field for Husky Field.
The high school quietly applied for and was awarded a grant from the Community Sports Development Council, Inc. to partially fund the installation of an artificial playing surface on the field inside the track at the stadium.
The grant would pay for approximately two-thirds of the project, Nichol said, provided that the school can raise the other third of the approximately $1.1 to $1.2 million the field would cost.
Nichol said the field would be multi-purpose, providing a playing surface for both football and soccer. He said CSDC has funded similar fields at Santiam Christian, Pleasant Hill and Eagle Point high schools.
Lebanon High School installed an artificial turf field last summer but that was financed entirely by the community, he said.
Nichol said a series of meetings will be held to inform those interested in the project after it takes shape.
A preliminary meeting will be held Oct. 30 for organizers, followed by a larger meeting, planned for November, to introduce the project to interested potential participants.
“We need public support, so this meeting will be a planning session to figure out how to generate business and public support,” he said.
If the money can be raised by next spring, the field could be installed in time for the fall 2013 sports season.
Nichol said he hopes to gather a small group of businesses to provide core support for the project, who will then help recruit other “investors.”
He said the project actually started two years ago, in the fall of 2010, when he and others approached the School Board with the idea. But the financial difficulties that struck the district soon thereafter put the brakes on progress.
“Because of the pool and the budget and everything, we wanted to put it off one season,” he said.