Scott Swanson
Let me begin by saying this: If you haven’t seen Husky Field yet, you’re missing out.
I’m not saying this as an athlete, or to athletes.
I’m saying it to people who have no desire to run, jump or throw: You need to drive up Long Street or 22nd Avenue to one of the parking lot entrances and take a look, hopefully from up close.
It’s hard to view that new field and track and not field a flush of pride.
The good kind. Pride in what the community of Sweet Home has wrought.
I’ve been in Sweet Home for more than 10 years, which is not enough to qualify me for the deep recesses of community life and heritage yet, but sufficient to start to belong. I’ve even had the privilege of seeing how folks here will go out of their way to help each other when the need is real – or maybe even imagined. People here can be extremely generous when they feel the need.
I wasn’t here to experience the effort to build the Jim Riggs center, but I have to think this stadium Turf Project was just as, or more, impressive show of community spirit.
I visited Husky Field at least once or twice a week during the entire construction process (except one week when I was out of state). Even though I don’t have a background in civil engineering, I rapidly began to appreciate what I was seeing.
This was big, very big. And it wasn’t just what was being accomplished, in technical terms. I rapidly realized that I was watching a display of genuine commitment to the needs of the community, and to kids.
During the past few years, I’ve also watched, from a distance, similar fields being built at South Albany and Lebanon.
There were differences. I didn’t see a lot of equipment sitting around for days on end on Husky Field like I did in some others. When there was dirt to be moved, local folks showed up to move it. When there was gravel to haul, the trucks just seemed to magically appear, trucks with local names on the doors, driven by local guys who could have been doing other things. When it came time to haul the 1-ton bags of filler for the field, more trucks appeared.
Even though he’s humble and hates to hear it, it would be utterly remiss of me not to credit Dustin Nichol and his associate project managers, Mike Melcher and Jason Armstrong, for the work they did in coordinating a very complex project. For the most part, equipment was in place when it was needed and people were showed up to do things the machines couldn’t, all directed by these guys.
Without them, frankly, it wouldn’t have come together, particularly in a way that leaves the district in the black. When people deliver on the pledges they’ve made, it will be paid for.
But they did this and they did it well. Let’s just say I wasn’t very surprised to hear that the folks from FieldTurf, the artificial turf manufacturer, were impressed by what our people did out there.
Now the field’s done. The track is complete, much improved over what it was before. A giant, working scoreboard towers over the south end, another testimony to local generosity. The whole thing is beautiful.
It’s great to watch soccer players and football players run around out there. Yeah, playing on that carpet instead of on a field full of mudholes takes some getting used to, but perhaps that will add motivation for young people to improve their fitness before the season begins. You have to run faster to keep up with the ball on that surface.
This spring we’ll see kids using that track, complete with improvements that will make it easier for them to find space to train for events. Perhaps we’ll see more of them discover the work ethic it takes to be great.
At the risk of waxing overly rhapsodic, I’ll suggest that Husky Field is more than a beautiful, brand-new sports facility that should make any visiting coach or athlete’s mouth water when they pull up in the bus.
It’s a beautiful monument to what can happen when people give of their substance and themselves to a good cause.