Bob Lutz: West Pioneers welcome new, modern athletic facilities

Wichita West has a strong athletics tradition, like many high schools. You just have to search really hard to find it.

The Pioneers have been down and out for a long time, having reached the depths of near hopelessness in some sports. The school’s pride has suffered.

West, probably more than any other Wichita public high school, needed the new facilities for which there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday evening.

Those facilities include a new, beautiful and big gymnasium and locker rooms, an all-weather turf field and eight-lane track, tennis courts, wrestling room and weight room. West also has new vocal and instrumental music rooms and practice rooms.

“Unbelievable,” West principal Joel Hudson said Wednesday as he showed off some of the new digs. “In fact, before it was completed, we were sending out tweets to our students during the summer and they were excited. When school started, you could really tell they were ready to come back and see all of this.”

West football coach Weston Schartz, who infused excitement into the school when he was hired to return three seasons ago, agrees that the new facilities were badly needed. And not just for today’s students, but those from the past.

“We have some of our older alumni come by now and see this and they’re so happy we finally have such nice stuff,” Schartz said. “They take even more pride in it than the kids we have now because guys all saw it coming.”

The new gym is the highlight. Adorned in Pioneer maroon and gold and with a shiny new floor, it was the site of a Tuesday night volleyball triangular, the first event on that floor.

“We had Bishop Carroll and East here and everything went flawlessly,” West athletic director Phil Daignault said. “We had all of these visitors coming in and out and we were getting all of these nice comments and feedback about how much nicer this is. And our kids – you could just tell how much they were out there on the floor getting after it. It was really wonderful.”

Things were much more quiet in the gym Wednesday afternoon. But two West boys basketball players were playing a game of one-on-one. I wondered if they would ever stop.

“This is a lot better than our old gym,” senior Mike Swinney said. “My first reaction was, ‘Wow!’ It’s unreal. I’m just glad we have this new court, finally, and I’m glad we have it before my senior year. I appreciate that I’m going to get to play on this floor and in this gym my last year and I’m going to do my best.”

West has been at or near the bottom of the City League standings in many sports for a long time. The school, though, is showing signs of life beyond the new facilities.

Schartz led the Pioneers to the Class 5A playoffs in football last season and there is increased participation in sports, Hudson said.

“Mortar and bricks don’t make a school,” he said, “but they help a hell of a lot. When our kids visit and see other facilities – not just in the district but outside – you can see it in their faces. ‘Why don’t we have that?’ Well, now we have that. You can feel it, you can see it, you can almost taste it – the spirit is really strong. We’ve got more kids out for everything and not just sports, but clubs, organizations, Scholar’s Bowl. Our band is bigger than it’s been in probably the last 10 years. So bricks and mortar make a huge difference.”

Northwest’s gym, still one of the biggest and nicest among the City League’s seven public high schools, was constructed with the school in the late-1970s. East got its new gym several years ago and just last year new gyms were unveiled at Heights, North and South.

Southeast will have a new school in a few years, one that includes a football field.

Declining facilities district-wide prompted a $370 million bond issue that taxpayers approved in 2008.

“Thank you to those taxpayers for making such a huge investment,” Hudson said. “We feel like they have put their trust in us and that they’re a smart group. Kansans are practical, smart people and they know that if their schools get run down, then the whole community starts to suffer and the whole community falls apart.”

As construction winds down on the many projects green-lighted after the bond issue, facilities are an issue of the past. The West community revels in the improvements, which also include a new baseball field south of the school.

“Every day when this gym was being built, I’d get to school and find myself just parking in the lot and wondering what it was going to look like when it was done,” Hudson said. “Well, it’s even better than I thought it was going to be. It’s awesome.”

This story was originally published September 11, 2014 at 6:31 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: West Pioneers welcome new, modern athletic facilities."