Covington schools broke ground on the new Holmes High School softball field on Tuesday, a journey nearly seven years in the making, said district Athletic Director Ken Ellis.
“Starting next year, our girls will take the field on the finest surface in the region,” Ellis said, “fully turfed, beautifully lit and ready for the next generation of athletes.”
The journey to begin constructing the field had “years of planning, delays, determination” behind it, Ellis said. Spearheaded in the community largely by the Tom Ellis Athletic Memorial, or TEAM, foundation, the project has taken on more urgency since at least 2020. This was especially in light of a 2023 report from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, which concluded that the district was deficient in its Title IX compliance, specifically as it related to the softball team.
The report said the district had failed to provide equal facilities for girls sports, especially softball because the team’s field at the time paled in comparison to Meinken Field, the field for the boys baseball team. The report suggested the district do all it could to build out facilities for the girls to match the ones provided for the boys.
The report came out around the same time the district was attempting to control costs related to its capital projects. At a board meeting in November 2023, board member Stephen Gastright expressed dismay at the ballooning costs of Holmes High School renovation projects, which at the time consisted of a grouping of several proposed renovations, including the softball field.
Later discussions saw the softball field project separated out from the rest of the proposed construction projects and relocated from its original proposed location on the Holmes campus to Glen O. Swing Elementary, where Tuesday’s groundbreaking took place (the event was moved inside due to the weather). The field was later bid out as its own separate project.
Gastright himself spoke at the groundbreaking, congratulating the team and expressing optimism for the future.
“We are going to build, I think, a field that is going to be on par with Meinken Field for our softball team,” Gastright said.
The event also heard statements from Superintendent Alvin Garrison, Holmes Principal Ben Brown, Mayor Ron Washington, TEAM Foundation member and former coach Joyce Murphy, current Coach Dan Curtis as well as some players themselves.
“We are deeply grateful to be able to play on such a nice field,” said player and student Julia Starr.
“We have been wanting this to happen for a while now,” said another player, Carlie Riley.
Murphy discussed how girls’ athletics had changed since she went to Holmes. During her time as a student, there were no region-wide girls’ athletic organizations, so opportunities for girls to participate in sports were slim or short-lived—a one-day round robin tournament in her case.
“We had what was called the Girls Athletic Association,” Murphy said. “We didn’t have organized games where you got to play other schools and got to travel and had buses to take you and nice fields to play on.”
Things got a little better by the time she became a coach and teacher, although there were still limitations.
“Our girls softball team actually won the first regional tournament that was allowed, and that was as high as you could go,” Murphy said. “[The Kentucky High School Athletic Association] did not even recognize girls softball at the state level. This [field] is really an action in progress.”
The renovations are expected to take about six months to complete.
“I really hope that you girls – and young ladies- will bring some of your friends, bring some of the other students, encourage them to come out and play,” Murphy said. “And that’s for all female sports.”
“This is the future,” said Curtis. “We have worked so hard to get this. Let’s put a great product on the field.”
