Stadium effort kicks
off with fund-raising
By Jesse Phelps

Those in attendance at any recent Nordhoff football game have had the opportunity to see a brand-new car paraded down the track at halftime. The sleek little automobile is being raffled off to help benefit construction on new facilities at Ojai Valley Community Stadium.

The car, donated at cost by Mark Johnston at Ojai Ford, is a fully-loaded blue 2003 Ford Escort ZX2 two-door coupe, which retails for over $16,000. It comes with an automatic transmission, power windows and doors, cruise control and, most importantly, for those hot Ojai summers, air conditioning.

The dealership also bought the first 30 raffle tickets and donated them back to the cause for special promotions.

The tickets, which sell for $25 each, benefit a community effort to revamp Nordhoff's athletic facilities and replenish the adjacent Ojai Meadows Preserve, now under the care of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy. The construction will ensure that proper drainage occurs on all Nordhoff athletic fields, diverting the water to the meadows.

Interested parties can purchase tickets at a host of local events and outlets including athletic competitions at Nordhoff, any public school in the valley, The Attitude Adjustment Shoppe, Ojai Sports and the school district office.

The $2.15 million project includes improvements to the press box and announcer's booth, a new all-weather track, made from recycled tires, and additions to the stadium grandstands.

The improvements will not only increase the seating capacity but will also provide handicapped access on both the home and away sidelines, said Matilija Jr. High teacher, fund-raising specialist and wetlands-project coordinator Mike Krumpschmidt.

Seating, he said will expand from 2,000 to 2,500 on the home side, with better spacing and more leg room. Removal of the temporary visitors' bleachers will allow the construction of 1000 permanent seats.
Because of the nature of the grant, Nordhoff will see only $1 million of the total, with the rest earmarked for the Land Conservancy. The total cost of the project is $1.5 million, plus another $600,000 for a hoped-for replacement of the grass football field with artificial turf.
Krumpschmidt said he's wanted to improve the facilities forever but it took a brainstorm three years ago to get it done. By integrating the wetlands into things, he gained access to a grant available through the Department of Water Resources.

He now stands as the liaison at the center of a huge project which includes Caltrans, the city of Ojai, county fire officials and the department of Fish and Game.

As background, all of the land encompassing the Ojai Meadows, the Nordhoff grounds and the doctors' offices across the street, said Krumpschmidt, was once a flood plane, featuring "seasonal, vernal pools."

The building of the campus necessitated the taking of much earth from the surrounding parcels, he said, "robbing the meadow of its top soils and making the campus a bog that now can't drain the way it used to. After just an inch of rain, a large part of the campus goes under water. The stadium, in fact, fills up, becoming a doughnut-shaped pool, rendering it useless. The practice fields get so bogged that you can't use them for a long period of time."

Rick Vogel's son Marty plays football for the Nordhoff varsity. Vogel is an unofficial member of the coaching staff, charting plays, keeping statistics and prowling the sideline at every game.

He says the safety issues are a concern and that several games have been rescheduled or played in less-than-desirable conditions due to flooding. "We had to reschedule a game with Oaks Christian. We had no access to the field," said Vogel. "There's always issue in terms of standing water on the field. In this year's game with Santa Paula, we had a foot of water. To play on a better field or an all-weather track, that would be great."

Nordhoff football coach Cliff Farrar said the stadium renovation will benefit not just his team, but the entire community. And he's rooting for the artificial turf. "If we can get the turf, then we'll have a 24-7 facility," said Farrar. "And that means many more people can use it."

Krumpschmidt said that the improvements will make events like CIF playoff games, Ojai's Independence Day celebration and graduation far more comfortable. And because football games subsidize other sports, the new capacity, said Krumpschmidt, will create a monetary domino effect.

He hopes to raise $30,000 of the remaining half-million needed to fund the grandstand upgrades from the sale of 2000 raffle tickets. Krumpschmidt said that in a similar raffle at Buena High in Ventura, a Harley-Davidson was auctioned off at $100 per ticket but that he wanted to make the tickets more accessible and the prize more useful to more people.

The drawing of the winner will take place at Nordhoff's Spring Showcase on May 25.

Krumpschmidt said he's also courting larger donations and offering naming rights on various parts of the facilities, from the field itself to a goal post or a bleacher seat. "If we do really well on that, we'd like to install the turf," he said.

The project comes on the heels of the $6.2 million renovation of Nordhoff music, science and administrative facilities. A proposed theater complex is also in the works for the campus. It all adds up to a lot of work and a lot of money, but Krumpschmidt said the end result will be worth the effort.

"Then the entire school," he said, "will be what it ought to be. And we'll have a state-of-the-art stadium, just like when it was first built."

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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