The recent planning of the new Lexington High School building has prompted discussion among LHS faculty and athletics coaches regarding its effect on the sports practices and available facilities for student-athletes.
Andrew Baker, the Interim Principal of LHS, noted that the planning and designing phases require a significant amount of time due to logistical challenges and financial obstacles. Baker believes the rebuilding process will not impact any of the sports seasons.
“We’d work with the athletic director and other towns to make sure that we would still have a full sports season, maybe even use some other site in Lexington. I have never heard of sports seasons being canceled outright. Because of construction, you just have to work around it. It wouldn’t be fair to Lexington High School students. We would maintain the program somehow even if there were some short-term hardships,” Baker said.
However, the question of whether the LHS field house will also be rebuilt is still uncertain.
“MSBA, who does a lot of the reimbursement for the financial project, probably won’t touch the fieldhouse, so it would have to be an additional override question on the ballot for the townspeople,” Naomi Martin, the Athletic Director at LHS, said.
In addition to athletics, there are many potential new designs that allow for shared spaces within LHS for Physical Education classes.
“In a perfect world, we would love to see some classroom space for CPR classes to be taught, a yoga room to be able to teach that while also having a gym that’s two and a half to three times the current size of our gym,” Martin said.
However, the new location of the LHS building could significantly affect facilities for practices and games.
“Wherever they decide the building to go, athletics is going to end up losing fields. And so when that happens, we’re gonna have a variety of different things to look at. We’re going to probably play some more away games than we would if we had facilities,” Martin said.
Despite the long and difficult design process, the Lexington community has continuously supported the school.
“One of the many blessings of being in Lexington is having a community that invests in resources before it’s too late. So there’s work that’s going on that we’re excited about,” Martin said.
Although there is a lot of excitement for the rebuilding of the high school, there are still uncertainties for the future of student-athletes and the athletic programs at LHS.
“I have been here a long time and every time we’ve ever asked the community for something in the likes of projects and funding, they’ve always come through. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity. But there’s also a lot of unknown. And athletics will absolutely live in the unknown for quite a while,” Martin said.
