Perhaps you have heard word around school about the upcoming renovations to Bethany’s athletic fields. Even if you’ve collected each and every rumor there is, some questions still go unanswered. Which is why the team here at Sightline got an interview with Principal Hank Willems to get the inside scoop on the future project.
This project seeks to redo essentially the entire athletic complex at Bethany. The soccer field, softball, and baseball will be moved, a track will be added, and the tennis courts will even eventually be moved across the tracks! Additionally, there will be improved safety features like new bleachers and easier transportation throughout the fields with new walkways.
Hank emphasized that the three most important parts of the plan were safety, creating an area to show off the school, and opening the doors to new sports opportunities at Bethany.
The safety aspect will be achieved through new walkways, bleachers, and other pieces of equipment built to be accessible to all. Currently, our fields are not friendly to those with disabilities, and this project would change that. The new layout would make sense for all people as well, since it would make travel between tennis and other sports much easier, saving trips across the tracks and sparing people from slow-moving and stopped trains.
The athletic fields are perhaps the most visited part of Bethany’s campus by people outside of our community, and we want them to look nice. A good first impression is very important, and we want our athletic facilities to represent all of the great opportunities that we have at the school. This includes modernizing the entire area and installing landscaping to beautify the fields.
The new addition of a track would open the door to new opportunities at Bethany for both the high school and the lower school. The high school track team would have a place to practice under the new plan, which saves lots of gas from traveling to Goshen College every day for practice, as well as the freedom of not having to share the facility. The new track could also be used by the middle school, which doesn’t have a real spring sports team as of right now. With these new facilities, it would give middle school athletes something to participate in. The track would also be able to be used by all in P.E. classes and in other aspects.
So the biggest question is: When will all of this happen? Will I be graduated before this even starts? Well, the answer isn’t set in stone, but there is some hope of a quick start to the project. Hank said that the first round of the project (which would include the track, the new soccer field, the new softball diamond, and new bleachers and walkways) will start whenever it is fully funded. This could potentially be as soon as this fall, which would mean that the first round would be completed next fall. Don’t get your hopes up, however, because this is not decided yet. But petitioning for donations always helps!