Lafayette starting ‘Dores Drive for Excellence’ campaign for new field house

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, June 6, 2018

The west end zone at William L. Buford Stadium is getting a complete makeover.

With a new video board having already been constructed last month, the additions are not stopping there. The Lafayette County School District announced a new fundraiser that will go towards the construction of a new field house.

The ‘Dores Drive for Excellence’ campaign will begin this week and will fuel the Commodore football program’s new home.

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“(The field house) is the reason for the scoreboard,” Lafayette football coach Michael Fair said. “We thought that it would be nice to, of course, have the big scoreboard, but it was all brought around just trying to get the facilities like we wanted them. We could use a new building.”

The school district is currently trying to pass a bond to build a new elementary school, with that knowledge, Fair did not approach the board to try adding the field house to the list of items wanted.

Instead, the boosters are trying a grassroots approach, using the scoreboard as the catalyst.

To raise the funds, the Lafayette Commodore Football Club is selling sponsorship levels for the scoreboard. Along with the sponsorships, the club is selling bricks that will be placed around the base of the scoreboard.

All proceeds will go to the club.

“I was just trying to think ‘What could I do to raise our own funds and not take anything away from the academic side of things?” Fair said. “It was just a business model that we kind of came up with. We’re just going to try and see if we can’t raise enough funds to get a head start on our facilities.”

Fair already has a design in mind for the field house, and it is one that will be familiar to some, the batting cages at FNC Park.

Fair recently obtained a copy of the blueprints for the indoor hitting facility, with the idea that a section of ground next to the existing field house is the same size as the batting cages.

The new field house will be the home for the varsity football locker rooms, coaches’ offices and a brand new training facility and weight room.

The current field house will be used by the junior high football team, while the track teams will be given access to the locker rooms that are currently being used by the football team. Both soccer programs will also see improvements, having a year-round locker room and storage space. The soccer teams will share a weight room with Lafayette’s baseball and softball teams.

There is not a start date or a completion date set as the club is waiting to see how much money is raised by the campaign, which begins this week.