Springtown adding wrestling, soccer for ’06-07 school year

Jimmy Ivey

The need to expand is always a good thing. If a need exists, it needs to be met.

For several years, Springtown ISD has been dealing with this problem when it came to both wrestling and soccer. The need for those sports is being met starting this upcoming school year as boys and girls wrestling and soccer have been added to the school’s athletic program.

“That process was in the works before I was hired as the athletic director,” said Springtown athletic director Brad Turner. ‘I think the first board meeting I went to after I was hired, they approved [adding the sports].

“We have lost some kids here to other schools that do wrestling. That is a concern. We don’t want to lose kids.”

The wrestling season will begin at the end of the football season and runs through the early part of the spring semester.

“There is a big club wrestling program here,” Turner said. “There have been a lot of kids who competed and did well — gone to state. The other good thing about wrestling, that I like, is it gives a kid that weighs 100 pounds who is probably not going to be a good football player because he is little — it gives him something to compete in and be good at.

“The main thing is having a facility to do it, hire a new coach and getting all of the equipment that it entails; and the board approved it.”

The new coach for wrestling is Carl Hornback, who came with Turner from Sulpher Springs.

A place to have wrestling though, is not an easily solved problem. Springtown has options, but they come down to timing more than anything.

“We are still up in the air for where the wrestling is going to be,” Turner said. “We have an indoor facility being built, but it won’t be ready until probably Christmas or the spring. We have several options.”

There is also an elementary gymnasium which does provide space for meets. This location appears to be the most likely place until the new indoor facility is completed. Turner pointed out the wrestling mat, which accounts for a majority of the $10,000 to $12,000 start-up cost, could be used for more than wrestling. Turner hopes the indoor facility will alleviate many of the space issues Springtown has now.

“It is going to be a new program, but we have a lot of kids who have done it,” Turner said. “It is not going to be new to them. It is more new to me because I have not been at a school that has had wrestling.

“Soccer was the same way. We have had a club team, a boys’ and girls’ club team for several years. This year, we hired a soccer coach and he went with the club team.”

The new soccer coach for the boys is John Albritt from Sulpher Springs. The new girls coach is Jessica Lowe, a first-year coach who played collegiate soccer in Michigan.

“I think there will be a little more transition factor in the soccer,” Turner said. “Because we got put in a district with Aledo and Fort Worth Diamond Hill — there are some very good soccer programs in our district.

“Again, we have kids who have done it. It is not like we just said ‘Hey we are going to do this.’”

According to Turner, the bad thing about soccer is that it is hard to do soccer and other sports since soccer overlaps with so many other sports.

The costs for the new sports are high, but will go down after the first year.

“For soccer, we spent about anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 per boys and girls, so $16,000 to $20,000 total,” Turner said. “There are more kids involved and more cost. After that, it is just upkeep and maintenance. It will be comparable to baseball and softball.”

The soccer teams will play at the football stadium, and will have practice facilities both next to the stadium and south of the high school. The soccer teams will also have access to the indoor facility once it is completed.

The plans are to have tennis, drill team and wrestling dress in the indoor facility, but with the exception of basketball, all the sports will be able to use it, especially in the spring when weather is more likely to interfere with practice time.

Turner said once the facility is complete, there will be no conceivable reason to lose any practice time for any sport.