6 The Clackamas Print
sportsed@clackamas. edu
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Facilities long overdue for renovatio
*
By John William Howard
Associate Sports Editor
Imagine that you are in the final stretch of your
senior year of high school and making final decisions
on which college you will be attending in the fall.
You’re a track star and are hoping for a scholarship to
Clackamas Community College, and have nearly com
pleted a tour of the campus.
You walk with one of the coaches out of Randall
hall and past the dilapidated tennis courts, taking great
care to walk around the muddy patches and the cracks
in the asphalt on your way. Finally rounding the comer
and reaching the track, you take one look at the fissures
and hummocks in the track surface and turn to leave.
Your career as a runner would be much better spent
elsewhere.
That story, according to Assistant Athletic Director
Kayla Steen, isn’t all that uncommon. “You’re trying
to promote what a great school this is and you walk out
to show them the facilities and it’s ‘Oh by the way, we
can’t run in the first three lanes of this track and we’re
not actually going to compete on this track, we’re going
to go to a different location to compete, but you should
really come to our school.’ It’s a hard sell,” said Steen.
Steen coaches women’s basketball for the college
as well and understands the challenge that recruiting
poses, even with a decent facility.
However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In
May, Clackamas Community College will place a $130
million bond measure on the ballot. While some of that
money would go to things like updating classrooms,
increasing campus security and building a new technol
ogy learning center, money would also be devoted to
the much-needed replacing of crumbling athletic facili
ties. Both athletes and coaches think these upgrades
couldn’t come quickly enough.
Decathlete Carlos Vazquez said that it was the
coaching staff that drew him to Clackamas in spite of
the horrible state of the track. “It’s in bad condition for
any kind of runner, whether it be a sprinter or a distance
runner,” said Vazquez.
When Vasquez first came to CCC, head track and
field coach Keoni McHone showed him around the
school and the athletic facilities. Vasquez remembers
being unimpressed. “My high school track was better
than this,” he said.
Track troubles have gotten bad enough that the
track is no longer suitable for competitions and home
meets have been moved to Oregon City High School’s
Pioneer Memorial Stadium. This means that most of the
profits that are made from hosting meets go towards
renting the stadium, a price of $50 per hour.
Money isn’t the only loss due to a bad facility,
though. The track, in its current condition, is unsafe for
both athletes and the community.
“I always make the joke that I’d rather have the kids
out on our cross country course running on the grass
because there’s less of a chance of them rolling their
ankles than on the track,” said Distance Coach Jerret
Mantalas, who also highlighted the facilities impor
tance to local residents.
“It’s a huge community piece. How many times do
you see people that are out running around the field that
are members of the community and how many times
do you see them want to use the track? It’s not safe
and it’s not something that people should technically
be running on. There’s almost a greater risk of hurting
yourself on the track than off, which shouldn’t be the
case,” Mantalas said.
Worn out facilities go beyond the aged track. Along
with having track meets at the OC stadium, Clackamas
Keelynn Johnson (left) and Carlos Vazquez practice relay handoffs during track practice. Runners lil
Johnson and Vazquez have to sidestep cracks and bumps on the inner lanes (insets).
also hosts home women’s soccer matches on Oregon
City High School’s field, something that has been the
case for nearly a decade. With potential upgrades, ath
letics can really turn things around.
“The hope is that we’ll be able to host our first
track meets and soccer games in the last nine years
since our playing surfaces have been up to competition
standards,” said Steen, who said that both the track and
the soccer improvements" would be part of the same
project. “The idea is to put a regulation size soccer field
inside the track and that would require the track expand
slightly to be wider and shorter.”
She also mentioned several other projects, including
replacing some of the older bleachers and resurfacing
the tennis courts, which “... campus safety has to liter
ally take a lawn mower to because there are so many
cracks and weeds coming from them,” she said.
The new soccer field would accompany a period of
great success for the program on the field. Since soccer
began at Clackamas in 2002, the program has gone 132-
37-17, winning three NWAACC championships and
five Southern Region championships and qualifying for
the playoffs every year they have existed. They’ve done
so well that first year Head Soccer Coach Janine Szpara
thinks that players will come to Clackamas regardless
of where they play home games.
“Clackamas has so much going for it that the
facilities would be a bonus for recruiting but not a deal
breaker,” said Szpara. “I think a new field could help
recruiting but also have a very big impact on what other
events could be held at the school, so the affect could
be more far reaching then just recruiting.”
Recruiting aside, everyone that heard about what
the bond could do for athletics was excited about the
prospect of having a new place to play.
“It would be nice to have home meets at the school,”
said jumper Kenney Shoenfeld. “I’m sure we’d have
a lot more support because people wouldn’t hfl
drive anywhere; they’d be able to stay at schofl
watch us.”
I
“I think the bond itself would promote Clacfl
athletics in a much stronger avenue,” said Steeia
said that the bond passing would bring in new stifl
both athletically and as part of the general studentfl
“We’ve been very successful with what we’ve hfl
I see a lot of potential for a lot more success in difl
programs with what this bond is going to help us fl
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The Clackamas Print struck-out last week with a front page error, so here is our correction.
Nick Olney was incorrectly labeled as Nathan Douglas. GO COUGARS BASEBALL!
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