First-class facilities benefit students, community

By JOSH HAVARD The Lufkin Daily News

Lufkin has always been quite a sports town. From state championships in baseball, football, basketball and soccer to the back-to-back national titles of the Thundering 13 and Fierce 14s, sports have a way of bringing the community together.

Thanks to some major recent additions, the rest of the state is getting to share what East Texans already knew: The Lufkin area is a pretty special place when it comes to the athletic spectrum.

Lufkin opened what is now known as the Panther Athletic Center prior to the volleyball season in August. After each team played a game there last spring, the new baseball and softball fields officially opened for games in February.

In terms of 5A athletic facilities, it is not an overstatement to say Lufkin stands on its own.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s surpassed expectations,” Lufkin athletic director and head football coach Todd Quick said. “When they passed the bond, the school board and administration went to work on it. They knew we had one chance to really do it right.

“They understood the importance of it. Of course it’s going to affect the kids in school now, but this is also going to affect people for 20 years, not just one. They knew this opportunity only comes once and they made sure they did it right.”

The results already speak for themselves as it has become a venue for events at a statewide level.

The Panther Activity Center, otherwise known as “The PAC,” hosted the Class 6A Region II Volleyball Tournament that featured The Woodlands, DeSoto, Mansfield and Klein. With teams from much larger enrollments in town, Lufkin was able to put on a successful event.

Lufkin hosted both the boys and girls Class 4A Region III basketball tournaments over the recent months.

“Just in basketball, we hosted 12 playoff games, two regional tournaments and a couple of warm-up games,” Quick said. “At Panther Gym, I think we hosted six games one time and everything else was below that. We’ve obviously doubled that with a bigger facility.

“This is a place that people want to come to and people want to play at. It’s rated at 3,500 people both for seating and standing. We hosted Silsbee and Houston Washington, which wasn’t a total sellout, but we were close. There isn’t a chance we could have had a big-profile game between those two teams in the past if we wanted to let all their fans in.”

While the basketball facility has shown the benefits at a regional and statewide level, the local teams also made themselves at home in the facility’s inaugural season.

The Pack basketball team put together their best season since 1979, advancing to a regional tournament of their own. They went undefeated at home until the last week of the regular season.

The Lady Pack basketball team swept its home district games in securing the district’s second seed and just missing out on the 16-5A title by a single game.

Lufkin’s volleyball team was nearly flawless at home on its way to clinching another district title.

Once those teams were on the road for their playoff runs, the new facility welcomed in teams from across the region.

“If you build it, then they’ll schedule it,” Quick said. “It’s been kind of the magnet we thought it would be in terms of teams wanting to play here.”

With the scheduling of the games, Lufkin is able to use the money from those playoffs to help with upkeep on each of the new facilities.

“It goes to the maintenance with the upkeep,” Quick said. “You want to keep the facilities nice where everybody still comes here. This isn’t a museum. These facilities are here to be used.”

Quick also said that while he couldn’t speak to the exact community impact, he was confident those games and tournaments brought plenty of added revenue to the community.

“When the regional tournament was here, one of the teams had to stay north of us because there were no hotel rooms available here in town,” Quick said. “I think that in itself speaks to how many people were here that weekend. Fans, players, coaches and families come into town for places like this and they’re going to eat, they’re going to shop and they’re going to need a place to stay. I think that has to have a positive impact.”

While the PAC has seen the majority of benefits, the Lufkin baseball and softball teams already have seen plenty of benefits from the new fields.

With winter rain usually wreaking havoc on preseason practice schedules, those teams have had the benefit of the new turf fields.

“We’re so used to having to change the schedule every day that we almost don’t know how to handle this,” Lufkin head coach John Cobb said. “We’ve had years where we got on the field three times before the season just because it was too wet to play on. This year, it’s been almost nothing. There isn’t any telling how much practice time we’ve saved just by being here.”

The baseball team also hosted two tournaments for the first time. In addition to the annual Pete Runnels tournament, it hosted the Integra Classic.

Each tournament saw a strong level of competition, something Cobb said could be attributed to the new facilities. Only one game was lost between the two tournaments due to weather when a storm hit on the second night of the Integra Classic.

“If they can, most teams are going to try for tournaments with turf fields because you don’t have to worry about losing a whole weekend,” Cobb said. “I think that helped us get a few of these teams here.”

The baseball and softball teams also were having plenty of success as both appear ready for postseason runs.

An extra benefit for the athletic program has been in the safety aspect of students, something that was a major selling point when the bond issue was voted on.

In past years, softball and baseball players would need to travel across town to Morris Frank Park for after school practices and games.

Basketball players would need to make the trip to the middle school. With the new facilities, all practices and games are at the on-campus location.

“We were all 16 years old at one time, and we know we’d wait until the last second to get where we needed to be,” Quick said. “Anytime you can keep them off the road for a little bit, it’s a positive. Parents don’t know whose riding with who. Then you’ve got three 16-year-old boys or girls in a car. It’s better for all of us that they can just go across the parking lot.

“Besides that, our baseball and softball coaches figured out they’re getting an extra two weeks of practice time throughout the year just from the time it takes to get out there. They’ve got more time to recover, study and relax. All that adds up for student-athletes throughout the season.”

Like the basketball facility, the baseball and softball teams also are expecting a much larger slate of playoff games at their facilities this year.

With the turf fields, there will likely be at least one game or series at each field each weekend throughout April and May.

“We’re not far removed from the situation of looking for a turf field just because all the grass ones weren’t playable,” Quick said. “We drove to Mumford one time just because they had a turf field. We expect we’ll be pretty busy for the playoffs with this facility.”

With all the new facilities wrapping up their first year of use, Lufkin has high school facilities that are built for the long haul.

“The school board, the administration and the community did what’s right for the kids,” Quick said. “That doesn’t go unnoticed.” josh.havard@lufkindailynews.com.