RCS Softball Program Gets ‘Field of Dreams’

Roxboro Community School (RCS), a charter middle and high school in Person County, enjoys a thriving athletics program that includes middle school and high school softball for girls and, after 16 years, a dream, and a lot of hard work, these young ladies now have their own home field.

Since the school’s athletics program started in 2008, the boys’ baseball teams have played on the field at Optimist Park in Roxboro, but the softball teams had to drive to Bushy Fork and play on a county-owned field there. Softball fields are smaller than those used for baseball. Although they are laid out in the same format, the bases in softball are 60 feet apart whereas baseball bases are 90 feet apart. The distance from the home plate to the outfield fence differs too; with softball fields typically measuring no more than 250 yards while baseball fields are usually over 300 feet.

RCS Board of Directors member Mindy Henderson is chair of the Board’s fundraising committee and one of the driving forces behind renovating an old softball field at Optimist Park so that the girls and boys could play in the same complex. The goal was to give the girls something of their own while also making it easier for parents and other supporters who have children on both the softball and baseball teams. It would also allow the teams to support each other instead of being separated by a distance of about 10 miles.

Mindy said, when parents began telling her they would love for the girls to be able to play in the same complex as the boys, she told them she would present the idea of renovating the long-abandoned Optimist softball field to the full Board of Directors. She said she soon did so, reminding the Board members that the renovation would make Optimist Park “an amazing complex. It would give our girls a home they could be proud of.” She also reminded the other directors that the student athletes had “GPAs (grade point averages) that are off the chart.” At that point, every member of the high school team had a GPA of 3.9 or higher, she said. “They were already winners in the classroom,” Mindy continued, and the renovation project would allow them “to be winners on their own home field.” One member of the team at the time was Roxboro’s Distinguished Young Woman for that year, said Mindy, and her question to the Board was, “Why are we not putting effort into our girls?”

In July 2022, the school’s administration and the Board of Directors approved the plan to renovate the field – if Mindy and the teams’ supporters could raise enough money to do so. Charter schools are public schools in North Carolina but do not receive capital funding like traditional public schools do, so those involved must get creative in order to pay for buildings and sports venues.

Mindy said longtime RCS softball coach Michael Clark was the true driving force behind giving the softball teams a home. When she told him she had approval to move forward, she said Michael immediately “made a great sponsor packet” to use when they approached local businesses and individuals about helping with the effort. “The amount of community work that made this happen was astonishing,” she said, noting that nearly everyone she and Michael approached gave in-kind work or materials or money to the project.

CM Solomon & Son Grading “stepped right up and did the grading, removing trees, and using their own trucks to pick up dirt for the field,” she told me. Other major donors include Talbert Building Supply, Camp Chemical, Lowes Home Improvement, Chandler Concrete, Derrick Rimmer, Tommy Lawrence Electrical Contractors, and the Roxboro Rotary Club. Between $30,000 and $40,000 was donated anonymously, Michael told me.

In the interest of transparency, I must say that I was on staff at RCS at the time work first began on this project. I was able to write a grant proposal that garnered $10,000 from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association to get the idea off the ground. I also saw first-hand how hard Mindy, Michael, his wife Megan, and so many others worked to make this dream come true for the 30 or so girls who don the Bulldogs softball uniform each year.

Michael recently told me that, “We don’t always realize the backing we have here” in Person County. “Community members will help each other.” He said this project “shows the kind of community that we have and the caring it is willing to put into the kids.”

Karrie Obie, a RCS sophomore softball player, told me the field gave her and her teammates “a boost of confidence. Before, we felt isolated at Bushy Fork. Not as many people could attend” the games there. Now, she said, “there is more support for our sport.”

Karrie and other softball players helped with fundraising efforts by selling raffle tickets and barbecue plate tickets. “I was definitely glad to be a part of” those efforts, she said.

And having their own home field allowed the girls to “come out pretty hot,” this season, “playing harder teams,” she said. Indeed, as of this writing, the high school team was 10-4 overall and 1-1 in Triangle North Athletic Conference play.

Karrie said she and her teammates were enjoying “more chemistry” and “togetherness” as they practice and play on their own field. She added that she thanked “the coaches, the Optimist Club,” and all who worked on this project for granting the teams the opportunity. She and her teammates “have so much gratitude for all who were a part of getting the field built.”

Michael, whose daughter Maci played softball at RCS until her graduation in 2022, said she “never got to watch the boys” play and that he would have liked for her team and the boys to be able to “cheer each other on” at their respective games. During this time, he heard that there “used to be a smaller field in the back” of the Optimist complex. One day, he decided to check it out by looking the park up on Person County’s GIS website. Sure enough, he said, “there was an old backstop fence” and other signs of a former field. He went out and measured, he said, and “thought it would work” as a softball field.

After working “night and day” for two years, Michael said, “just seeing [the project] accomplished” was his proudest moment. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on March 15, before a game against cross-town rival Person High School. (RCS won that game). Michael said, “When I looked around” that evening, “and saw it, the field was 100 percent better than the picture I’d had in my mind.” He added, “I’m glad we could get it done for the girls.”

In addition to the donors, school administration and community, Michael said he wanted to thank his assistant coaches who “have been there from daylight to dark to make sure we got things done.” Those coaches are Ronnie Leonard, Jason West, Terry Sanford, Anthony Lee, Ernie Davis, and Mike Dodson.

RCS Managing Executive Director Darkarai Bryant said, “Having a home field is awesome. The girls and guys can now play in the same location, and that’s an opportunity we never had before. It gives the girls something to be proud of, and they had a hand in the project coming to fruition.” He added that the partnership between the school and the Optimist Club “has been in place since the school’s inception. I can’t put into words how much the Optimists’ support has meant for RCS baseball and softball programs.” He said he was thankful to “all who were involved in making this come to pass.”

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