By Jim Walker
jim.walker@irontontribune.com

COAL GROVE — The Coal Grove Hornets’ athletic program is getting a facelift.
The Dawson-Bryant School Board has voted to build a indoor turf/multi-purpose building along with a new athletic field house. Ground breaking is expected in the coming weeks.
“We’re going to build a new field house and an indoor multi-practice facility for whatever is going to happen,” said 24-year veteran Coal Grove athletic director Bryan Mulkey.
The new field house will be a two-floor facility and replace the old building that is located near the middle school.
The new facility will have football locker rooms, middle school track locker rooms for the boys and the girls, a weight room, training room, coaches’ offices, film room, laundry room, restrooms and a much-needed storage for multiple extracurricular groups.
The building will also include an indoor golf simulator for the high school and middle school teams.
The indoor turf/multi-purpose building will be constructed at the north end of the campus near the high school next to the baseball field.
All extracurricular groups will have access to the facility for practice and training purposes and be available to the band, flag corps, cheerleaders, gym classes and many more are expected to take advantage of this space.
There will also be an auxiliary classroom that can be utilized for academic instruction, team meetings, meetings/events for any other student activity groups such as the prom committee, student council, Math Club, CYA, Quiz Bowl and yearbook committee.
The indoor turf will have retractable batting cages for baseball and softball and will be lined or striped for both football and marching band purposes.
Additional storage room will be included for the baseball and softball programs as well as the marching band. The facility will have its own restrooms.
“I think it’s going to be an unbelievable improvement from what we had. What we had was nice and our kids did well and took care of it. This is just going to be so much of an improvement for all our sports, our band, our percussion, anyone who has to practice,” said Mulkey.
“It creates time for practice. Someone won’t have to go at 9 o’clock at night or anything like that. We won’t need three different times during baseball, softball, track season. It’s just going to be unbelievable.”
The board and administrators for the Dawson-Bryant school system are excited for the opportunities the new facilities will off students. Mulkey said the project has been talked about for nearly two decades before it finally came to fruition.
“They’ve been talking about it for a long time. It’s finally going to happen and we’re definitely excited about it,” said Mulkey.
“We don’t have a lot of places to grow where we’re at, but I think the superintendents we’ve had and our school board have done a great job of doing what really needs to be done. The softball field was a wonderful addition and this is going to be very impactful to all our kids.”
The project is expected to take a year to complete and the board and administrators ask residents to be patient with any inconveniences it might create.