Following a discussion during Carbon School Board’s meeting on Wednesday evening, a field house could be in the district’s future.
While winter sports are packing the gym throughout the week with daily practices, basketball games and wrestling matches, the rest of the off-seasons sports are struggling to find time slots for the gyms’ availability. With this situation, Carbon School District has began discussing a potential field house for athletes to practice year-round.
“I think that we are to a point where everyone we compete against has those facilities. It’s probably hard to keep expanding and keep wanting more from our students… and not provide the facilities that we need,” said board member Gwen Callahan.
Currently, the athletic teams have access to the two gyms at Carbon High School (CHS) and one gym at Mont Harmon Middle School (MHMS). However, the sports in-season have priority over the use of the gyms, pushing the other sports to the district office’s gym or other locations in the community. This still presents concern due to the gym floor of the district office not being adequately equipped for spring sports.
Scheduling conflicts for the gym is not just a problem at the high school, but at Mont Harmon as well. MHMS Athletic Director Jordan Blanc addressed the board with the concerns from the middle school’s coaches. With MHMS only having one gym, he stated that it is in use from 5:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. If there happens to be a basketball game or a wrestling match, this leaves many of the teams unable to schedule practice time in the gym space.
While the gym schedule is already packed full, Carbon School District has also added two new sports to the roster this year, girls’ wrestling and boys’ volleyball. This will only add to the fight for practice time within the gyms.
Although this was not an action item on the agenda, the board made the decision for administration to begin moving forward by gathering information concerning the field house to obtain an estimated cost.