Warrior Magazine December 2018

Plans announced for football operations center

E ast Central Com construct a $2.6 million football operations center at Bailey Stadium on the campus in Decatur. The funding and plans for the facil ity were approved at the Oct. 9 Board of Trustees meeting. A groundbreak ing ceremony was held Nov. 13 at the construction site. To be initially called Warrior Hall, the 12,300-square-foot facility will be located just outside the North end zone of Warrior Field at Bailey Sta dium. The building will contain locker rooms for players and for coaches, a team meeting room, position confer ence rooms, coaches’ offices, an equip ment room, a players’ lounge, and a laundry room. munity College has announced plans to

Stewart stated that the construction of the football operations center is an other project included in the college’s long-range strategic plan for facilities adopted by the Board of Trustees in September 2016. “As a component of the Campus Master Plan, I am pleased that the col lege is able to move forward with this project,” said Stewart. “Many individu als and groups have contributed their money, time, and effort to make this facility a reality and we are so appre ciative to each one. By utilizing the fund balance in our auxiliary budget to fully fund this project, the college will not be required to secure a loan and thus will save in the long run with no accrual of interest. We will simply pay ourselves back over time. We are eat ing the elephant one bite at a time, and this is the next bite.” Stewart added, “In addition to the football operations center, there are several other projects that are nearing

Warrior Hall will also house a state of-the-art training room to be used by student-athletes in all nine varsity sports at the college. More than $320,000 of the funding for construction of Warrior Hall comes from private donations, including the naming of most rooms inside the facil ity. This amount is in addition to the $160,000 in private donations used to assist in the installation of the artifi cial turf at Bailey Stadium in 2014. The $480,000 reflects the most private do nations ever contributed to construc tion-related projects in the history of East Central Community College. The remaining $2.25 million in con struction costs will come from college funds that will be repaid over the next few years. The college will also utilize a $430,000 certificate of deposit to fund other items related to the new facility including, but not limited to, a scoreboard, fencing, and utilities. East Central President Dr. Billy

Architect’s rendering of East Central Community College’s football operations center, Warrior Hall. (Courtesy Eley Guild Hardy Architects)

22