A natatorium, a place where swimmers call home. A place where athletes come to train, recover, and interact with other athletes. However, what’s even more shocking is the fact that our school doesn’t have one. Our school is the only high school out of Springfield Public Schools that doesn’t have a pool within its district.
Parkview has the Fassnight Pool just a walk away, on campus. Central has a pool on the edge of the campus. While Hillcrest doesn’t have an on campus pool, they do have access to the recreation center on the Missouri State’s campus and occasionally use the Hammons Student Center. Last but not least Glendale has the Foster Natatorium, just an eight minute drive from campus. Every school has a pool, except ours, and I think this isn’t fair.
Our school’s team has to travel to the Foster Natatorium more commonly known as the Nat, every day for practice. I would know because I have been on the school swim team for the past four years. The Nat is a 14 minute drive from our school’s campus. While this doesn’t seem like a huge issue, that time doesn’t factor in construction or potential traffic. This could take about 20 minutes just to get to the pool.
That’s not the only issue with not having an on campus pool though. Practice times are terrible. 7 teams around the area practice and use the Nat for two hours. Since a majority of teams use the Nat, practice times are divided up and each team has a different time slot when they can practice. Out of the three practice times provided, all of them have one problem. The earliest is too early, starting at 3:30 p.m. Since our school doesn’t release students till 3:10 p.m, getting to practice on time is nearly impossible. The middle practice is 5:30 p.m to 7:30 p.m, this isn’t the worst but since it’s in the middle of the afternoon, the time is broken up for athletes to do school work or hang out with friends. The last practice time though is by far the worst. It goes from 7:30 p.m to 9:30 p.m. That, combined with the drive home, most athletes get home at about 10:00 p.m. This is way too late to be staying up, especially if athletes had morning practice that same day or had practice the next morning. Morning practices start at 5:30 a.m and end at 6:45 a.m. That gives athletes an hour and a half until school starts. Adding a new natatorium would kill two birds with one stone, decrease driving, and also give the team a better practice window without taking any other team’s time.
That’s not the only thing a new natatorium can be beneficial for. The amount of people that complain about not getting a parking spot is more than I can count. The parking lots are always filled and many people have resorted to taking other’s spots. Building a natatorium on campus would create an excuse to build new spots and decrease the number of spots stolen and complaints of lack of space.
Building a facility also allows for more opportunities to increase the publicity and popularity of the swimming and diving team. I, among most of my peers, have always wished for a true “home field advantage” feel and never get the chance because of how far the pool is. If we had a pool on campus, students would be more encouraged to come because it’s closer than the natatorium the team performs at. The pool can also be used by other sports such as football and basketball for water rehabilitation and injury recovery.
The couple of complaints I hear about building this facility is the question “Where the heck are we going to find the money for that?” The answer is more simple than one may think. Our school can request money from the state and use that money to build the pool. If the pool is used by other sports, they can also help pitch in a little money to complete the quota. What can make this plausible is if our school asks for help from the hospital. Cox hospital, right down the road can donate money if they feel like they can use it as a place for physical therapy, injury recovery, and also swim lessons. While Cox already has a pool at the Meyer Center, adding another one would allow more space and schedule flexibility while also providing a closer option to practices. Therefore, it is not impossible for funding to be a problem.
There is plenty of land for one to be built. There is space right next to the practice field and behind the baseball field. While it would take a while for the construction to be finished, the area isn’t being used for much, so there are very few drawbacks. I don’t see a reason why we can’t use this space for other purposes rather than looking empty.
I think a natatorium needs to be built not just for the swim team, but it can also improve the campus life around our school and end up being a great asset.
