Charles Bland Stadium will be game-ready for opener

The Dexter R-XI School District expects most of the work at Charles Bland Stadium to be completed by the Bearcats’ home opener against Ste. Genevieve on Aug. 30.

Assistant Superintendent Gavin Miller said that the concession stand, restrooms, stadium seating and the field will be ready.

The new field house won’t be ready for the opener, but Miller hopes it will be available for the Sept. 13 game against New Madrid County Central.

In the meantime, the Bearcats will continue to use the old field house, and the visitors will dress at the high school.

Once the Bearcats move into the new field house, the old field house will become the visitor’s locker room.

Miller said that the track will be paved in mid-September.

“We welcome everybody out for that first game on the 30th,” Miller said. “Please be patient with us. It’s not going to be 100 percent. It’s just going to take a few extra weeks for all the little things to be shored up, which was expected.”

__New field house__

Now that the roof is covered on the concession area/field house building, workers are installing the plumbing and running wire throughout the building.

The entrance to the coaches offices is located on the east side of the building and leads into a small lobby.

“There’ll be a couple of chairs,” Miller said. “We’ll kind of fill it up with some old black and white photos, a little bit of history of Dexter football. That’s going to be nice.”

The coaches office is located through a door on the right. A glass wall separates the office from the locker room.

The coaches will have a dressing room, bathroom and shower.

Lockers will be placed along the walls of the locker room, and some will be placed in the middle.

“That would give us 50-some lockers. That’s plenty for nine through 12 right now,” Miller said. “Hopefully, our program will grow. We’ve ordered 80 (lockers). We’re going to store the others in our storage room or our storage unit that we have on campus.”

While the locker room is no bigger than the current one, the facility is designed better.

“The coach will be able to look out here and see everybody at once, no horse playing.” Miller said. “You can see all the guys getting dressed and know that everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to do.”

A storage room is located to the west of the locker room.

“That’ll be where we store the high jump and some football equipment,” Miller said.

A hallway runs from the locker room to the field. An area along the hallway will include a white board and a projector.

“(The coaches) can show film right here on the white board,” Miller said. “They’ll have another white board here on the side if (coach Aaron Pixley) needs to draw stuff up. Obviously, the whole team can’t come out here, but you can have all the starters on offense and the seven or eight guys that are playing a lot.”

A bathroom and a shower room are located on the south side of the hallway.

The new field house will not only provide space for the high school football team, but for the middle school team, trainers, game officials and tennis teams.

A training room is located through a door on the west side of the field house.

“We’ll have two or three taping tables,” Miller said. “We’re going to have a washer and dryer in here, so coach can keep his new uniforms nice and clean. (We’ll) probably have a little ice tub. I think we’ve got an old one somewhere. Just whatever our trainer feels he or she needs.”

The next door to the south leads into the middle school locker room.

“(In the past) they dressed upstairs in the middle school gym. It’s not very conducive for what they’re doing,” Miller said.

The locker room includes a shower room and bathroom for the players.

A room for the game officials is located in the next room.

“This is where they will dress,” Miller said. “We’re going to put some nice chairs in here. There will be a countertop, some small lockers where they can store stuff and a bathroom and shower room.”

Officials previously used the bottom level of the press box. Hurdles will now be stored there.

On the south side of the field house, men’s and women’s restrooms will be available for tennis fans, and space will be available to store tennis equipment, replacing a shed located on the west side of the courts.

A L-shaped room on the southeast corner may be used for storage but could double as a concession stand for tennis matches.

Once the new visitor’s locker room goes into use, teams will be able to park their bus behind the field house. They can enter through a new door installed on the east side of the building.

“This will turn into the visitor’s locker room, probably the nicest one around,” Miller said. “We’ve put a new dropped ceiling in, we’ve painted the walls and we’ve put a rubber coating on the floor. … (We added) new water fixtures, toilets and sinks. Trying to dress it up a little bit. Make it as nice as we can for visitors.”

__On the field__

The turf was installed earlier this month, but the installation of the field was delayed because workers found what they called “gumbo” under the old field.

“When you have that type of soil and you run machinery on it with wheels, all it does is pump and it pumps the vehicle into sinking,” Miller said. “Basically, we had to dig it all out. We dug and we dug. It went about 5 feet deep from the track out to the middle of the field. Then all of a sudden, (the dirt) was hard as a rock.”

A new drainage system was dug out under the field where a gradual slope runs to the north. Water will drain through the gravel and into a 1-foot wide pipe that goes out to the ditch on the west side of the property.

A bearcat logo is painted over a 10-plus yard stretch near the 50-yard line. Each end zone is painted red with Dexter painted in black in the south end zone and Bearcats painted in the north end zone.

The high jump pit will sit on the north end of field. Long and triple jump areas are located by the fencing on the north edge of the campus. A runway coming toward the stands will provide an area for the pole vault.

The javelin runway is located to the west of the scoreboard, and athletes will throw south toward the eighth-grade practice field.

New bleachers

Miller said that a concrete slab was scheduled to be poured Monday where the lower bleachers will sit. The upper bleachers remain the same.

Miller said that the stadium will have about 200 fewer seats.

“(The stadium’s) never packed,” Miller said. “If we need to add more later on, (we can do that). The design was to be able to get everything into the number (budget) we needed.”

A concrete walkway will be poured in the area between the upper bleachers and the concession area.

A rail will run behind the field-level seating.

“The (top row of the) bleachers will sit on top of the wall, and there will be four openings,” Miller said. “That’s how you’ll walk down to the lower bleachers. There will be no more middle entrance to the track. You’ll have to exit on the north end or south end.”

There will be a 3-foot chat way and then a fence in front of the lower bleachers.

Miller said that additional bleachers will be installed to the north of the lower level seating for the band.

“We’ve cut off 10 yards worth on each end of the lower bleachers,” Miller said. “It’s going to be a little more snug if we have a packed house, but people are going to be able to stand over here by the rail and see everything.”

__Concession area__

Additional seating will be located in an open area to the west of the concession stand.

A 4-foot-tall rail and a countertop will be installed. Large fans will be placed in that area to keep fans cool.

“We’ve kept our old bleachers,” Miller said. “We’ve taken a section of those metal seats and we’ve powder-coated them red. (The workers are) going to connect them to the rail, so you can come over here and set your soda and food down and take a picture of your kid out there playing. How many views are like this in Southeast Missouri? None!”

AstroTurf similar to what’s on the field will be installed in an area stretching from the concession stand to the lower bleachers. The rail and countertop will continue in this area.

“It’s just to give people who have a kid (or grandchild) playing that would never walk out on the field (an) idea of what that’s like,” Miller said.

A 6- to 8-foot wide concrete walkway will be poured along the front side of the upper bleachers, replacing the old 3-foot-wide path.

The old concession stand behind the upper bleachers will be transformed into an area for the booster club. In the past, the boosters used a shed located next to the concession stand. The old restrooms will be capped off or removed and become another storage area.