Athletes yearn for indoor training facilities, competitive balance
Photo curtsey of Oshkosh’s Facebook
As Wildcat Nation plummets into spring and the rain, sleet, or snow begins to fall, practicing outside will become a significant challenge for players and coaches alike. Sweaty athletes forced into cramped gyms can't help but wonder when the ground will be broken for indoor facilities.
Athletic director Brad Jodarski looks at this challenge with valid concerns.
“I would say our district is behind other FVA facilities as far as them being newer and in better condition,” he said. “Being a multi-high school district makes it more challenging than those who only have one high school, but a number of our conference schools have upgraded facilities or built indoor facilities to help with the needs of their student-athletes. We have a ways to go to catch up.”
Jodarski acknowledges the problems students face and has witnessed issues first-hand.
“It makes it harder for student-athletes and coaches when other teams can practice indoors when the weather is bad,” he said. “We don't have a very good indoor option. Instead of having an indoor turf facility with a roof, the football team might be outside in the parking lot if the weather is bad and we can't get on a grass field. It's a challenge, and it puts us at a disadvantage.”
Athletes have felt this setback every time they play against a school with a multi-million dollar facility. Sophomore Hailey Hammen plays first base in softball and finds practice to often be deterred by weather conditions.
“We have to squeeze into the gym when we can’t practice on the field,” she said. “But we normally can't get gym time because a lot of sports need the gym, so if we had a facility, we could have a lot more time for different sports.”
Hammen believes gifted athletes aren't able to reach their full potential due to the lack of resources.
"We have talent in all of our sports,” she said. “But we can't showcase a lot of that because we aren't practicing as much as we could be in the offseason mainly because we have nowhere to go.”
Members of the community often have to travel to find the assets they need to be successful.
“Many of our family and kids are traveling out of town to those types of facilities to participate in their sport during their offseason and during the summer,” Jodarski said. “Students in other FVA schools don't necessarily have to leave their community to have access to those types of facilities, and we do here in Oshkosh.”
Dean of Students and head volleyball coach Gillian Pakula believes that the district is losing profits by not investing in an indoor facility.
“Our conference tournament rotates through the FVA schools and we can never host here because of the tight space and we don't have enough seating for spectators,” she said. “The space is available in other FVA facilities and it seems like you could host multiple tournaments which could be a money generator, and I can see from the school’s side how that would be beneficial.”
Despite this, Pakula finds that success speaks louder than pretty buildings.
“We will walk into a school and they will have a volleyball court that's distinguished for them, and it's very prestigious,” she said. “But is that what athletics is about? You're working hard to be on this team and nice things are just a part of it.”
An important aspect to remember is that taxpayers aren't paying solely for their kids to play a school sport.
“It comes down to what our taxpayers want to pay for and school is about education and I get that,” Pakula said. “So it's not a huge consideration when getting referendums passed.”
Junior Isabella Seely competes in the pole vault but has nowhere to practice during the offseason because of the demands and space the sport needs.
“I do pole vault, and I can't go out in the middle of winter and just pole vault outside,” she said. “I feel like if we had some sort of indoor facility that had a track or a baseball diamond it would benefit our athletes a lot.”
Seely wants to incentivize training all year round and believes indoor facilities are the answer.
“I would like to see a little more effort towards getting our athletes to train and want to train during the offseason,” she said. “Rather than treating it like ‘We're in the offseason now so we don’t need to train.’”
Different types of fields can lead to confusion, and quick adaptation is needed from the athletes on the spot, which soccer coach Sohrab Akhavein has seen many times.
“We've been lucky enough to have pretty good teams, but when teams are practicing on turf and playing on turf you can tell a big difference from us practicing on a grass field,” he said. “Then we have to adjust to playing on a turf field when the ball moves a lot quicker and the game goes a lot faster.”
As anyone can assume, the district does not have the initial funds to purchase something like an indoor facility.
“Money is a major factor and sports facilities are not cheap,” Jodarski said. “One of the other challenges with two public high schools. Do you build one and share it or do you buy one at each? That becomes a challenge as well as location.”
Akhavein knows having two high schools causes more obstacles but raises an interesting point.
“I don't know why we wouldn't put money into it,” he said. “I think us having two schools might have something to do with it, but you look at a district like Appleton which has three schools, and they all have nicer facilities than we do.”
Jodarski has already started movements toward change and looks to the future with hope.
“I was part of a facility advisory 2.0 committee that looked at the district's plan to upgrade a new aquatic center and an indoor facility with a baseball, softball, football, and soccer venue,” he said. “So we have a plan. We just need to have some locations identified and then hopefully secure the funding.”
Still, Jodarski acknowledges the long journey ahead to indoor success.
“It's probably not going to happen at one time, but it would be great to have one or two of those to be built,” he said. “That way we can show people we are making strides. Sometimes it takes one or two people to get it going, and then more people build on that momentum and that's what I’m looking for.”
by: Sophie Carlin
Published on March 17, 2023
Oshkosh West Index volume 119 issue VI