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Friday, May 29, 1998

High schools are giving softball teams better facilities

By LISA KILBORN / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS -- DeSoto third baseman Heather Hill used to get tired of chasing balls that would keep going and going, no telling how far. All she knew was they were stopping well beyond 200 feet, an appropriate distance for an outfield fence for fast-pitch softball.

"Some places we played, the fences were so far out that the ball would just roll on forever," Hill said. "It made me so mad."

Until last season, DeSoto played home games on a city diamond designed for men's slow-pitch softball. The infield was huge and the fence was more than 300 feet from home plate. The dimensions essentially changed the game.

Hill, a senior, was thrilled when she learned DeSoto was going to construct a field. The Eagles played their first full home schedule at the new field this spring and even hosted night games, an uncommon luxury.

Softball, which became a UIL-sanctioned sport in 1993, held its sixth state tournament in Austin last weekend. But only in the last three or four years have area schools begun to make strides in converting fields to fast-pitch parameters or obtaining the use of city parks.

Title IX requires schools to provide comparable facilities for boys and girls sports. Because most schools lack the necessary funds or land, or both, the goal of building new softball facilities on a par with established baseball fields has been elusive. Lawsuits and complaints forced some schools to act.

Some schools have attempted to make fields multi-purpose because of space limitations. Some have done away with baseball practice fields in order to squeeze in softball fields.

The number of complaints has diminished, said Cynthia Doyle, associate athletic director of the University Interscholastic League.

"They've had time to develop their plans, and some schools have really nice softball fields," Doyle said. "It depends what kind of money and land are available as far as what one school might have that another doesn't."

Lack of money and land has relegated many DISD softball teams to subpar fields. Dallas schools primarily use city parks, some with unlighted fields, no scoreboards and no concession stands. Few DISD schools play on campus fields.

The district hopes to construct two four-field complexes plus two additional fields in the next few years, said assistant athletic director Elsie Moreno.

"We were lagging behind in softball, and we still need those new facilities," said Moreno, who coached girls athletics at Bryan Adams for 21 years. "We've come a long way, but it takes time to get the money and board approval."

The Fort Worth and Arlington ISDs feature better facilities. Fort Worth's Clark Field, a city facility, has three diamonds, and Arlington's Workman Junior High has two.

Everman, which plays at a city facility, made a significant improvement by putting up lights this season. The park is trying to improve in stages, said Maurice Hooker, an American Softball Association coach whose teams play out of the complex Everman uses.

Much work, however, remains. The three fields are marked by damaged fences and rickety bleachers. The dugouts' corrugated metal roofs come to a boil in the hot sun, and the benches are set too low.

Not surprisingly, the area's most elaborate fields tend to be where the sport's staunchest supporters reside. DeSoto, Haltom and Keller, three softball hotbeds, boast fancy fields, and the districts have provided everything from money to manpower.

DeSoto's shop classes built its dugouts, a project that taught students about construction and finance.

Euless Trinity and Hurst L.D. Bell also did something unusual by matching their softball fields to their baseball fields. The softball fields are identical to each other and resemble the baseball fields, although the blueprints are different.

Richardson ISD also opened attractive softball parks, crowned by a jewel at Berkner. Coach Rick Duff joined players' parents during the Christmas vacation to build a warning track.

"The only thing we don't have is lights," Duff said. "One hundred thousand dollars is why we don't have lights. But the boys don't have them, either. If they ever do, so will we. Title IX would see to that."

Berkner, which lost to Pasadena Dobie in the Class 5A state semifinals last season, played on makeshift fields or city parks until last season, as did the other Richardson schools.

"The district is doing the best they can," Duff said. "They have four fields to take care of, so we help out by mowing and watering. Our outfield looks like a golfing green."

The UIL's Doyle called the response to softball "a really positive thing." She said most schools are doing a good job of providing comparable facilities to what the baseball teams use.

There have been exceptions, however, which is where Title IX and the Office of Civil Rights come in.

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD went through that process. Faced with a problem familiar to area schools, Carrollton Newman Smith had no room to expand. A Title IX lawsuit forced the district to provide facilities sooner than it had planned.

Newman Smith initially juggled its fields, giving the softball team the baseball field. But the girls later switched to a city park because the baseball field had no lights. They use the baseball field for practice.

"We were going to build a softball field," athletic director Jim Slaughter said, "but probably not on campus. Then we were hit with the lawsuit, and we were forced to act quickly.

"The easiest, cheapest thing to do was to give the girls the baseball field. You can't just come up with territory where there is none, but you have to do something."

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Distributed by The Associated Press