Let there be light
- Updated: February 23, 2023
Donoho debuts lights on its baseball field in Feb. 28 season opener; addition will allow the Falcons to do many more things within their program
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
The Donoho baseball program steps into a new era when it opens its season Feb. 28 and it goes beyond just playing in a new classification.
The Falcons, competing for the next two years at least in Class 2A as a result of their recent success in 1A, will no longer be the Chicago Cubs of area high school baseball playing only day games at home.
They’ll be playing under the lights for the first time at Brock-McWhorter Field and head coach Steve Gendron can’t stop thinking about all that will mean for the future of his program.
“It means you can have a program to develop your younger kids because you have the ability to play at night,” Gendron said. “The ability to practice is a tremendous thing. It gets dark on the mountain at 4:30, so just having the ability to have a practice and not be rushed and be short (on time) every day is big for us.
“There’s a lot of different things involved – not rushing to start your games at 3:30; not rushing umpires, not rushing parents, fans; the ability to play a weekday doubleheader, which we’ve never done except for post-season – and started that at 1 o’clock. There are so many things we’ll be able to do now.”
Gendron has been looking to shine some light on his ballpark for 10 years. The lights that have been installed are a state-of-the art LED system on six poles strategically placed around the field. They’re positioned in such a way that when a ball leaves the yard at night, it’s gone – as in disappearing into the darkness.
It didn’t come cheap. There was some difficulty in setting the poles, as engineers had to drill through the rock base on the home side. But now that the poles are in and the lights are on, the Falcons will play their first home night game ever – weather permitting – Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. against Faith Christian.
“Any time you’re making upgrades to your facility it means that people care about what you’re doing as far as athletics are concerned,” Gendron said. “All the guys I’ve coached throughout the years have always wanted to play under the lights at home and reaching out to a couple of them last night they’re happy, they’re proud for the school and the baseball program getting some lights, but they’re also jealous.”
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