With a new high school football season just weeks away, several programs in the Chattanooga area are excited to make use of improved facilities and fields this year.
The East Ridge Pioneers are expected to open their new 6,000-square-foot field house next to the home stands at Raymond James Stadium by December.
“In 2001 when I became head coach at East Ridge, I started pushing for a field house simply because of the conditions underneath our stadium. They were not very healthy or clean,” said Tim James, who led the Pioneers from 2001 to 2007 and began his second stint in charge at his alma mater in 2016.
“Our weight room was extremely small, too. There has been a need there. The construction of razing the old stadium in 2015 also took away our locker room showers, along with our meeting and storage room. It made it that much more apparent we needed something for our kids.”
As other teams look for help updating their surroundings, patience has paid off for the Pioneers, whose stadium has come a long way since being condemned in fall 2015. The program is eager for the grand opening of its new facility, which will include a state-of-the-art weight room, meeting rooms, locker room, equipment room, training room, laundry/utility room, showers, bathrooms and a coaches’ office inside the cement block building, which goes up to 9 feet, 4 inches and will have a metal roof.