There are good days and not-so-good days this spring
at Browerville High School. One of the good days was Monday, when the Tigers
softball team made the one-hour drive to the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph
to meet Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley on the Bennies’ artificial turf field. For
the C-G-B Wolverines, the travel time for Monday’s game was two hours.
Those types of time commitments are worth it during a
spring when the home softball fields for both teams are unplayable due to late
snow and sodden soil. The five-year-old St. Benedict facility is first-class,
with comfortable seating, a roomy press box, large dugouts and other amenities.
Lauren Schnettler, a junior who
plays second base for the Tigers, said playing at St. Ben’s was a good
opportunity. “With our field, it’s going to be a while until we get to play on
it.”
When the Tigers return to their school in Browerville,
a long-term, hometown reality for their students, teams and communities is
striking. On April 1, a heavy load of snow and ice caused the roof on the
Browerville gymnasium to start sagging, and the gym was demolished. Thankfully,
the doomed gym ceiling was noticed on a Saturday as the track team gathered prior
to traveling to a meet, and no one was injured.
But the devastation is crushing nonetheless.
“So many
things we all take for granted have been impacted,” Browerville activities director Wayne “Ribsy” Petermeier
said in an email. “It was a place for gathering for so many more things (beyond
sports). It was a community center. Over the years the gym was used for funerals,
it held church services during Easter week, was a polling place for elections, held
Memorial Day and Veterans Day programs, proms and post proms, one-act plays,
Christmas concerts, band concerts, elementary concerts, grandparents day
concerts, dances. The gym was used basically seven days a week, 365 days a year.”
The gym was
constructed in 1948 with a stage area attached directly to the gym, used for
seating during games and for plays and concerts. In 1976 an addition was added to
double the gym’s size and seating capacity.
Just a
couple years ago, refurbishments were done in the gym. The floor was
refurbished and repainted, with new lights, scoreboards, shot clocks and
backboards installed.
An immediate
issue with losing the gym was finding indoor practice space for the softball,
baseball, track and golf teams this spring. The school has a smaller auxiliary gym,
but trying to schedule time for junior high baseball, JV and varsity baseball and
junior high, JV and varsity softball is a challenge. The track athletes have
been running the school hallways as everyone waits for outdoor conditions to
improve.
“Everything’s been disrupted,” Tigers
softball coach Jeff Myers said after Monday’s game. “We were just telling the
girls that we won't know where and when we're practicing until we get to school
tomorrow.”
Browerville played a softball game
at St. Ben’s last season and has a handful of games scheduled there this year. Myers
watched a game there two years ago and contacted Rachael Click, the St. Ben's
head coach.
“I just said, ‘Is it available for
use?’ And she was like, ‘Yep, no problem. Just let me know when you want to
come.’ They've been awesome to work with.”
Myers said the
Tigers’ home softball field “is notorious, it's built on a swamp. And I would
say if we were out there by the middle of May, we'd be happy. We do have some
slow-pitch softball fields outside of town that are kind of sandy and we might
be able to get out on those.”
There is no concrete timeline for having
a new gym open for business. Will the volleyball, wrestling and girls and boys
basketball teams play all their games on the road next season and maybe beyond?
Where will school concerts and other performances be held?
Other
schools in central Minnesota have offered the use of their facilities to the
Tigers, for which all are grateful.
“It really
makes you feel the heartfelt sincerity that our ‘rivals’ have all shown,”
Petermeier wrote. “It shows just how good people really are and how much
everyone cares about each other.
“So many
things we all take for granted have been impacted. All we can say is we will
take them one at a time and do what is best for our kids.”
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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