| Calvin builds new athletic facilities
By Mike Roorda
Staff Writer
Some of Calvin’s sports are getting a face lift, and it’s well under way. These changes, while affecting how the teams will perform, will have nothing to do with any of the players, the starting lineup or even the team captains. Don’t look for roster rearrangements or flashy freshmen for these improvements. Calvin is giving the softball team and the cross country team something to crow about: new softball fields and a new cross country course.
The softball team has long suffered as being “last as far as facilities go,” according to Charles Huizinga, the assistant director of grounds and the go-to man as far as overseeing the projects. The new softball field is going up amongst the 360-plus acres of land that Calvin owns across the beltline and is nestled among the fields that Calvin has allowed Grand Rapids Christian High to erect and use on their land. While the team and others associated with the project can access the fields through the new access road that travels from the back of the prince parking lot over to East Paris. The average student, however, can either take the healthy walk across campus and down the road or hop in the car.
The new cross country course also winds through the land east of the Beltline, and with all of the spurs and cutbacks that it will incorporate, will run for around five miles. The length of the course will make it usable for men’s and women’s college meets as well as high school competitions, opening our campus up further to the surrounding schools.
Currently, the softball fields are near completion. While the field itself is still relatively young, having only been planted in the middle of last summer, the field is already a far cry from the facilities that the softball team is used to using. The bleachers, bases and bullpens still remain to be seen, but aren’t very far behind. Within the next few weeks, things will begin to take shape and be finalized. The field is near playable as it is, missing only the bases and marked out baselines, but smaller things remain to be done yet as well. Eventually there will be a press box erected, and soon phone lines will be run out to the field so that reporters can report directly from the field.
Huizinga commented that he expected the field to be game worthy “within the week.”
The cross country track is also well underway, but still wanting of further work before it will begin to look like something that can be run on. As of Wednesday, the path itself had been cut out of the surrounding woods, with the biology department on hand to point out trees that were indigenous and rare to the area and should be saved. What exists now is a rough cut path that looks like someone went through with a huge weed whacker and sliced all of the big things up. Holding back further progress at this point is the city of Grand Rapids’ weight restrictions that are in effect on the main roads until the frost thaws permanently. Not wanting the roads in Grand Rapids to get any worse than they already are, the city doesn’t allow any heavy equipment on the major thoroughfares until the winter fades into summer for good. As soon as the city gives the go-ahead, they will till up the rest of the course and plant grass seed, or spread woodchips where needed.
When all is said and done, the course will be used by the cross country teams this coming fall as well as being available for students to use in the winter as a cross country skiing course.
Funding for both of the projects fell under the heading of the Stepping East project that included the more prominent DeVos building and Prince Conference Center. They both were begun at the beginning of the year, with the softball field slated to be done “soon” and the cross country trail by next fall and are the final projects under the Stepping East budget.
Neither the field nor the trail has a name attached to them yet but the possibility is still out there. Should a donor approach Calvin and offer to provide a donation for the purpose of furthering either the country team or the softball team, the donor’s name could then feasibly be assigned to the course or playing field.
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