Mississippi State’s response to the Department of Education’s request for plans to accommodate the move of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science from MUW to the MSU campus was impressive in its detail (12 pages) and presentation (color graphics, photos and schematics).
Conspicuously absent from the graphic materials and mentioned only in passing in the text are sports facilities.
In the schematic that shows the layout of the new Starkville High School and adjacent MSMS facilities, there is a notation that one of the common areas (used by students from both schools) includes an “arena.” At best, it’s an odd nomenclature, something we don’t believe we’ve heard associated with any other public K12 school. Perhaps it is a fancy word for gymnasium.
If so, it’s the only sports facility of any kind notated in the schematics.
For a project estimated at $175 million, the absence of softball and baseball fields, tennis courts, a track, football practice fields and weight rooms is an alarming omission. Starkville High competes at the highest levels in the state in multiple sports, after all.
While it is not uncommon for a high school’s football stadium to be located off campus, we have never seen, nor can we imagine, a high school campus with virtually no sports facilities of any kind (apart from the aforementioned “arena”).
It’s strange for another reason.
Whenever the case is made for MSMS moving to MSU, access to athletics through Starkville High’s programs is noted as an added benefit, yet that topic is mentioned only in passing in MSU’s proposal to the MDE.
Did MSU just forget to draw those in? If so, are they included in the $175 million cost estimate for the new campus or are those extra expenses taxpayers will have to bite off in later phases?
Or would MSMS and SHS students use the existing SHS athletic facilities across town? If so, will MSMS and SHS students be bussed back and forth between the academic campus and athletic campus?
It is also no small irony that MSMS students have more access to sports facilities today at MUW than future MSMS/Starkville High students will have on the new combined campus if the schematic is accurate.
“If you don’t build it, they will come anyway” is an odd strategy.
Will this arrangement diminish sports at the new school? It’s hard to say. What is easier to say is that it certainly won’t enhance sports.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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