The Park City School Board had a brushback for the baseball program’s field of dreams Tuesday.

Board President Andrew Caplan questioned spending $7 million on baseball and softball fields after a presentation by Scott Later, a project manager at MHTN Architects, who has been studying possible improvements to Park City High School’s athletic facilities.

“My first question is why would phase one be softball, baseball and not rectangular sports fields?” Caplan asked. Other school board members were similarly skeptical.

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Later had said a “hot topic” among solicited feedback was that the district’s baseball and softball teams had little chance to step on their fields last spring as they were snow-covered for much of the season. If the fields were artificial turf, they could have been plowed.

“I’m fairly conscious that we hear regularly from baseball parents, from baseball coaches,” board member Nick Hill said. “I’m wondering what we’ve heard from people who aren’t actively involved in the baseball program.” 

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Later brought three possible plan concepts to the board, and while each varied in facility locations and layouts, all would increase the number of parking spaces, add more sports facilities and address concerns Later found while speaking with those who would be affected. 

“The baseball and softball are what would be considered phase one of that project or of this work,” Later said. “This is roughly a $7 million project. We’re looking at turf fields for both spaces, a rehabilitation of the surrounding landscape zones, providing the dugout spaces and scoreboards and all the necessities to have those be a stand-alone.”

“Let me phrase it another way,” Caplan said. “How many students at the high school play sports on a rectangular field versus a baseball diamond?”

Park City High School Principal Roger Arbabi quickly got a text from a coach saying 120 players in baseball and softball.

“I understand the urgency of, ‘Oh, OK, we have some space and we can build some turf fields because we know that we need turf fields,'” Caplan said. “If I were to look at this through the lens of how many students do these dollars touch, there’s no way that we can say anywhere near the same number of students play varsity, JV softball, baseball than play the amount of demand we have for football, lacrosse, field hockey, any other sport.”

He said kids are getting cut from sports now because the district doesn’t have the needed practice space.

“I totally agree we need baseball facilities,” Caplan said. “But for $7 million as a phase one, I just don’t understand why we’re prioritizing two sports that are very, very low in terms of relative participation.”

Later said a lot of the feedback he received came from Jamie Sheetz, the high school’s athletic and activities director, and from responses to surveys that went to all coaches.

“I’d love to see the actual numbers for participation. I don’t really want to see the anecdotal numbers,” Caplan said. “I’m not in favor of moving forward on this until we have actual numbers. … This is no offense meant to Jamie, but I don’t think the prioritization of which fields should come just from the athletic department.”

Other members of the board expressed similar concerns about spending $7 million on facilities that serve 120 high school students.

Board member Anne Peters wondered if the baseball and softball programs should even continue if the board wasn’t willing to provide them with funding to improve their facilities.

“I know last year was really painful for these two teams, and why would we offer them if we can’t support them? Why would we have an orchestra if we didn’t have instruments? I say scrap the two teams until we can have a facility that actually can support them,” Peters said. “If we’re going to do it half-baked, that doesn’t support anyone.”

If passed, the entire project would cost the district tens of millions of dollars, which they would fund through lease-revenue bonds.

“I understand the community said we want athletic facilities,” Hill said, but he added he wasn’t sure if those same community members understood that fulfilling that demand would mean higher marks on their taxes to the district.

The board members agreed to hold off on voting until they can hold a work session Aug. 20 at 3 p.m..

District Chief Operations Officer Mike Tanner said a decision likely needed to be made Tuesday night if turf fields were to be built in time for next spring’s season.

“It sucks, but we’re just not going to be able to do that,” Caplan said.

Park City High School’s baseball coach, David Feasler, said he wasn’t surprised. He’s heard similar board discussions for the past eight years. Still, he was disappointed.

“Since I’ve been here, zero of the challenges that baseball and softball face have been addressed by the school board,” Feasler said. “It’s kind of a glaring lack of care and support.”

He was hoping Tuesday night’s discussion would be different since the board was willing to spend money on an athletic master plan.

“This is probably our third semi-serious time that they’ve gotten into an athletic upgrade conversation, so I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said.

He said the lack of a usable facility for much of this past baseball season left the Park City team with only six home games. They traveled for 25 games, which meant that he and his students missed out on several class periods. For one of their games toward the end of the season, he said a coach spent five hours clearing snow with a shovel and hand plow.

Despite the challenges with the program, he said softball and baseball athletes continue to “crush it.” The baseball team came within three wins of a state championship.

“We have a lot of conversations every year like, ‘Hey, let’s make the most out of what we got,’ and they’re really good at practicing inside,” he said. “I think everyone looks at it and is like, man, it could be even better.”