‘Wow, we’re going to play on turf next year’ at Smithsburg High School

The stadium renovation project at Smithsburg High School finally is more than just a dream, vision or wish.

After three years of planning and fundraising, ground officially broke on March 6 to begin phase 1 of the project, which includes installing an artificial-turf field, a new eight-lane track and new LED lights, as well as moving the scoreboard. It is to be completed in August.

“The first home football game, the first week of September, will be our grand opening,” said Mark Barnhart, the president of the Smithsburg High School Athletic Booster Club.

“When we made the announcement at the gym during a basketball game a couple weeks ago, as I was leaving, I heard at least two or three groups of kids, like ‘Wow, we’re going to play on turf next year,’” he said. “They were psyched. I heard a few kids, who maybe weren’t going to come out, are now going to. It’s just an extra incentive to play.”

Stadium upgrades necessary

The turf will replace the grass field at the stadium, which had become infamous for its rough and muddy conditions for football, soccer and lacrosse.

“Some people think we just want turf because it looks pretty,” Barnhart said. “This is a flood plain. We’ve had to cancel so many games. We’ve had to play at North High. We’ve had to play at other people's stadiums. These kids are winning, they’re earning the rights to have home playoff games, but the field is such a mess. You just couldn’t play on it, and you couldn’t practice on it. It was just horrible.

“And we were getting complaints from referees that there were dead spots in those old lights. And we were getting complaints about the track. You couldn’t see the white lines anymore. We started to get a bunch of safety complaints and things.”

The renovations also will allow youth programs to start using the stadium.

“It’s not just a high school thing,” Barnhart said. “It should bring more youth out as well, which is what the boosters’ mission is all about.”

‘You’re going to have to raise the money’

Justifying the necessity of the renovations is one thing, paying for them all is another.

“The (Washington County Board of Education) doesn’t have money to give every school that wants a new stadium,” Barnhart said. “They were like, ‘If you want to do some things, you’re going to have to raise the money.’”

More:Boosters driving toward goal of new turf athletic field at Smithsburg High School

Phase 1 of the project will cost about $3 million.

The booster club has gathered the majority of it.

“We knew this wasn’t going to be ‘pass the buckets around.’ This was going to be legit, corporate, grants, governments, things of that nature,” Barnhart said. “We’ve probably had 20 different donors, from federal to local to county to private. We had a $250,000 anonymous check that, to this day, I have no idea who it was.”

He said the board of education will pay the $425,000 for the new lights.

“So our share was about $2.5 million,” Barnhart said. “We had raised about $1.8 million, and we went to the county commissioners and said, ‘We’ve raised 80% of this project and we’re coming to you for some help.’ They gave us $250,000. The board of education gave us a loan at 0% percent interest for $326,000. We have partnerships, naming rights, with First United (scoreboard) and AC&T (press box and concession stand).”

Other naming rights are still available — such as for the track, ticket office and baseball and softball scoreboards — and more money is needed for the second and third phases.

“We’re hopeful we can continue to fundraise and bring more people in,” Barnhart said. “We want to pay this debt off immediately and start phase 2. The board has a grant for $350,000 that they’re holding onto. We don’t want to lose that money.”

Phase 2, which could start as early as this fall, includes new structures next to the stadium for home and away team rooms, a trainer room, a new concession stand and storage.

Eventually, phase 3 will involve redoing the school’s practice fields and new press boxes for baseball and softball.

Smithsburg lacrosse and track teams forced to travel

With the stadium closed due to construction, the Smithsburg boys and girls lacrosse teams will play their home games this spring at North Hagerstown.

The track and field athletes are the ones most affected.

“We have a great staff that’s knowledgeable enough and creative enough to make it work,” said Smithsburg track coach Adam Rudy. “We have moved our high jump pit up to the top parking lot. We are building a long jump pit off of a parking space. We’re doing sprints on the sidewalk.”

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The track team recently gained permission to practice twice a week on the track at Hagerstown Community College.

“It’s a season unlike any we’ve had before,” Rudy said. “We’re trying to make the best of a unique situation.

“Once it’s done, it will be fantastic. We’ll have a great facility, a facility a lot of people will want to come compete at. And getting an eighth lane will make hosting big meets even easier.”

The Leopards will open the track season on March 24, hosting their annual Charas Heurich Invitational at North Hagerstown.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Stadium renovations underway at Smithsburg High School