One Red Bank High School dugout was severely damaged by a tornado last week.
Staff Photo by Angela Lewis/Chattanooga Times Free PressIt’s high school baseball season. Georgia teams are under way and Tennessee teams can officially join them Monday, so it’s no surprise there was a chance of snow flurries Thursday night and this morning.
High school coaches are resigned to the short season and the mid-March starts that often leave players cold and fans frozen. Most have learned to equip themselves with Under Armour and a bevy of blankets, and most area concession stands are stocked with coffee and hot chocolate.
Other than Polk County coach Bill Triplett, few have had to deal with tornadic winds that bend poles and take the roofs from dugouts. It has happened to Polk at least twice in the last three years. One can now add Red Bank and Ooltewah to the victimized list.
In the heavy storms that hit Chattanooga a couple of weeks ago, Red Bank lost its third-base dugout completely and Ooltewah lost the roof to its home-side dugout and had backstop poles that reached at least 20 feet into the air bent to the ground.
“Oh, well, there goes that new mower I was planning on getting,” Ooltewah coach Brian Hitchcox said.