Warrior Magazine June 2019

GOING UP! Construction continues on the new Warrior Hall football operations center located just outside the north end zone of Bailey Stadium on campus. The estimated $2.6 million, 12,300 square-foot facility will contain locker rooms for players and coaches, a team meeting room, position conference rooms, coaches’ offices, an equipment room, a players’ lounge, and a laundry room. It will also house a state-of-the-art training room to be used by student-athletes in all nine varsity sports at the college. Construction is expected to be completed in late fall 2019.

possible experience. Part of that will be the continuing upgrade of our athletics facilities. I am formulating plans with each of our head coaches to prioritize the needs of their programs. Some of these projects will be short-term and others will be long-term, but they will all be shared in the near future. We cannot accomplish our goals as a department without the support of our alumni, friends, and fans. We need everyone reading this article to become a member of the Warrior Club, at whatever level works for them. Every gift counts! THE WARRIOR: The Warrior Hall football operations center is expected to open in late fall 2019. What impact will that state-of-the-art facility have on Warrior football? PAUL NIXON: We expect Warrior Hall to allow our football team to remain competitive on an annual basis in the MACJC South Division. Coach [Ken] Karcher and his staff have done an outstanding job of building a winning program. Warrior Hall will allow them to attract more talented, high-character football players and prepare them even better than they already have been with the addition of dedicated team meeting spaces, a brand new training room, and locker rooms for the student-athletes and coaching staff. THE WARRIOR: Are there still naming opportunities for Warrior Hall? If so, how can the supporters of Warrior athletics get involved? PAUL NIXON: There are multiple naming opportunities still available. All of the rooms have sponsors, but supporters can still sponsor chairs in the meeting room or lockers. There are also a couple of larger naming opportunities still open. Anyone who is interested can contact myself, Coach Karcher or David LeBlanc, director of alumni relations and the foundation at ECCC.

PAUL NIXON: Over the course of the next five years, in keeping with the college’s campus Master Plan, we want to complete a locker room facility for our men’s and women’s soccer teams, a clubhouse for our men’s and women’s tennis teams, add on to our baseball stadium which will include restrooms at the field, raise our softball stands, and reconfigure the space in Brackeen-Wood Gymnasium that will be vacated by football to benefit our basketball programs. Finally, we want to look at the addition of an Athletics Performance Center. THE WARRIOR: Private gifts are crucial for ECCC to meet its desire to be the best community college in the nation. Donations are also important to the athletics program. What are your plans for a successfully implemented athletics fundraising program? PAUL NIXON: We want to have a vibrant and active Warrior Club that supports all of our sports programs, regardless of affiliation. We want our stakeholders to be able to donate to whichever program they have a connection to or feel led to support. The key to our success will be the number of new donors we are able to develop through the Warrior Club. Ten dollars may not sound like much, but when you find 1,000 donors to give $10, it adds up quickly. I know there are thousands of people out there who love East Central and want to see us succeed. Our job is to reconnect those people with our current teams and make sure they understand that every gift counts! East Central is a special place, and the people who have been here know that. I believe they want to support us to the level they are able to, and we want to not only give them that opportunity but make it as easy as possible. In return, we will plan special events, which will allow them to stay connected to a place they love. THE WARRIOR: Finally, if you could describe your first year as director of athletics in one word, what would that be? PAUL NIXON: Blessed. ATHLETICS

THE WARRIOR: Now that construction on Warrior Hall is progressing, what are the other pressing facility needs that you feel should be addressed in the next five years?

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