What's up with the much-ballyhooed "community softball complex" on the east side of the UMM campus? How many ball diamonds does the community need? Are softball promoters getting out-sized influence when it comes to our community's facilities? What about soccer? Ask the Cyrus pastor, Chris Richards, about soccer, its benefits and enjoyment.
We have not seen development of varsity soccer for the high school. It would be super for drawing boys away from the hazardous sport of football. But we sure do have softball and baseball fields in Morris.
Up 'til now my attention toward the complex has been limited. We read press accounts full of (reeking with) positive cliches. A press person is hesitant to believe such stuff, to take it at face value. We've seen too much of it, known where it comes from.
The spokespeople for education institutions always have a wish list for things they describe as "needs." They are ready with the heavy-as-syrup rhetoric that can bowl you over.
Except that lifetime press people, e.g. yours truly, have developed resistance to that. We're fully prepared to consider something as the greatest thing since sliced bread, if we feel facts reflect that.
My curiosity about the softball complex got piqued a couple nights ago as I started observing closer. I walked through the complex. I suppose these will be serviceable ball fields. As for actual construction, there's a quite underwhelming little structure which maybe will have permanent bathrooms and be a pressbox? It's pretty small. Is this the main thrust of the effort?
At the start when reading about the project, I envisioned something pretty grand, on a level where maybe we could bid for the state high school tournament. Were we to accomplish that, I'd have to say "amen hallelujah." UMM would have to make available its substantial parking area on the east side of campus. Normal UMM users would be sent elsewhere.
UMM has a parking permit policy with stated hours at its lots. What if fans arrive during the hours of enforcement? Will fans park their cars along the sides of the road that goes east toward the bypass? I've seen that situation in the past and it could present a safety hazard IMHO, just like we see along the highway by the golf course for a cross country invitational. You have people crossing the highway and going in and out between parked cars.
I think Eagles Park has been developed awfully well along with Wells Park in west Morris. But proponents of this stuff seem never to be satisfied. I remember when the 1968 gym at the high school opened and we had to pinch ourselves to see if we were dreaming. I think I was at the first game there. Was Litchfield the opponent? I think those were the days of Butch Ersted.
My experience as a school-age fan was tarnished by key players getting suspended now and then. The suspensions had a notorious air in the student body, put sort of a dark cloud over the experience. So, some boys would get caught with booze sometimes. Can we blame them, the way so many of their parents organized their social lives? A little booze is small potatoes compared to a young man getting drafted and sent to Vietnam.
Varsity athletics was boys-only through my junior year of high school. Amazing, absolutely amazing! Surely I had female age peers who could have been superb athletes. We are left to ponder the might-have-beens.
Mary Holmberg came along as a trailblazer. It was my privilege to cover her softball program when it was in its infancy. Games played at Wells Park. I don't think any of us felt the facilities were a problem. The state tournament was in St. Cloud, "Whitney Field" as I recall.
Holmberg has been in it for the long haul with school athletics. I can assume she was right on board with efforts to get the ballyhooed "complex" developed east of town. At present I'm skeptical. I need to be persuaded.
I am sharing here an email I sent to coach Holmberg Thursday afternoon. She recently answered an email I sent her about goings-on in her hometown of Murdock: a white supremacist group arranging to use a church building. She put up resistance to the group, but I don't think it has been stopped. Here's part of the email I sent to Holmberg:
I took a walk last night and took a closer look at the softball complex, walked through it. I would just like to ask: are there going to be accommodations for fan seating? I see a problem for that: lack of space for this, or obstructions as with trees. I just don't see where it could go, although I could imagine some seating just outside the outfield fence, although fans might have to deal with the sun for late-afternoon. I'm just trying to imagine what it will be like. Eventually I might be "sold" on all this but I'm not there yet.
Will fans be happy standing or sitting in their own lawnchairs? Even so, could there be congestion among fans? Competition for sight lines?
No response from Mary.
I sent an email in the same vein to another MAHS faculty/coach person. This person was nice enough to respond:
As for the seating for the softball fields, I'm not sure. I didn't see any plans for that but I know what you mean. I was wondering where folks were going to sit. I guess we'll see what happens.
The new softball complex had its groundbreaking in August of 2020. Beware these groundbreakings: wasn't it Little Falls that had two or three such events for things that never got built? Like a horse-racing track and a cheese plant? Or what about in Wisconsin where top pols turned out for a groundbreaking for a "Foxconn" thing? We could have expected that project to fall flat. Republican pols were trying to sell us something.
So the question is: will the scenario be better for our vaunted new softball complex east of town, the place formerly known as the "UMM softball fields?" Granted there was a lot there to begin with - we are not building something completely new. I went to several UMM softball games with camera over the years for the newspaper.
The August groundbreaking photo had a whole row of what I would call "the usual stuffed shirts." Jim Morrison would laugh at my characterization. I don't think he'd rebut it. These people can come across like androids with statements about how fantastic the project is. Don't diss these people for that because it's just knee-jerk for them. It comes with the territory.
What us common citizens have to do is watch our pocketbook. Don't let such people pick your pocket. School people are happy to take all the $ they can get for their wish lists. We're left with the end of the stick or something like that.
We read that the "new shared softball facility" will include UMM, Morris Area School and the City of Morris. How is the City of Morris involved with organized sports, I mean outside of recreation? The city has been challenged in managing its own essential affairs. Ironically the city's water treatment plant is a stone's throw from the softball thing. The city has failed to communicate adequately about how we are to adjust to the plant.
Until the city can handle this better, it should forget about subsidizing a high school and college softball facility, please. Also, maybe knock off talking about solar panels. The city is not in business to be an environmental crusader or sports sponsor - it is in business to provide essential city services at reasonable cost. It is not sexy. It is just a fundamental service.
Matt Johnson says "our new softball field complex will provide amazing opportunities for student-athletes in both programs to grow while playing on one of the finest fields in west central Minnesota."
Amazing. . .
One of the finest fields. . .
I have walked past the place and it all looks pretty utilitarian.
Oh, the mayor had to chime in. Hope he wore his seat belt on his way to the groundbreaking. Sheldon Giese said "the City of Morris is proud to participate in the Morris Community Softball complex with the University of Minnesota-Morris and the Morris Area Schools."
He went on to call it a "collaboration."
Cliche city. . .
Well, the City of Morris burst its buttons, for sure, but what happened subsequently? I'll share here an email from a friend:
Relative to the softball field, when Blaine (Hill) was on his weekly radio show recently, he said something about the city having contributed some money to that project, but then whoever is in charge of the project came asking for more money. So, Blaine said no more.
Did the city start feeling skepticism? Is there politics behind the scenes?
My bottom line is that we have allowed proponents of the sport of softball to bowl us over. We should further develop soccer as an asset for our youth, as a total replacement for football for our boys. Because, we all now know the dangerous nature of football, the long-lasting effects it often has. We are belated in recognizing this, should be admonished for not recognizing it sooner. Football has a legacy "lure" that is so hard to shake, as if the sport were an enthralling "siren song" from Greek mythology.
"Cancel football? Surely you can't be serious." Let's put aside "don't call me Shirley" as the retort here, and just note that St. Cloud State University went ahead and cancelled football. These changes can happen.
More in the hyperbole department: I remember the push for girls varsity hockey in Morris. Our newspaper editor then, more or less said the "emperor had no clothes" in terms of the chutzpah from proponents. He noted that they approached the school board like they thought girls hockey would be a life-changing experience. Wasn't it just a new sport?
Girls hockey is a success. Much of my career at the newspaper was spent covering hockey when it was sandlot-like, no indoor arena. Combine that with my experience of going through most of high school with no girls varsity sports in existence, and you can't blame me for saying "I'm not in Kansas anymore."
So I have witnessed change and come to expect a lot of it. That does not mean that I cannot be skeptical sometimes, as I am now. It might not be "Foxconn" but it might be "con" with a small 'c'.
True wisdom
I remember a quote for the ages by my friend Chuck Spohr from when he was on the school board. It was not a formal quote but something he said informally about an issue. Put this one on your refrigerator: "If you give us the money, we'll just spend it."
The water treatment plant taught us that the road to hell can be paved with good intentions.
Most recently we saw this headline from the fine KMRS-KKOK news website: "New softball complex 'looking great,' says superintendent."
Supt. Troy Ferguson does not know what he is missing, spending this hitch in his career in Morris in a time when Brian Williams is not with the newspaper.
Ferguson spoke to the radio station's "community connection." "The field is looking good. The scoreboard was delivered. That's very exciting. And the dugouts are getting close to being completed. Windows are going in. And it's a heck of a facility and another testament to the support of this community."
This is not news, I mean for this particular stuffed shirt to talk like this. It would be news if he had said "man, this place isn't up to snuff." But that isn't what happened. Jim Morrison had a word for this kind of news coverage: "puffery."
I do believe there are more unanswered questions than what all of the stuffed shirts would ever come close to admitting. Such circumstances call for journalists like me, eh?
And, in MACA Tiger sports
Here's the link to my Tiger basketball coverage for the Waseca game. I am delighted to still be doing this. Many people thought I was washed up. I'll demur. God bless.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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