Field of Dreams, Part I

I don’t know if Bob Miller ever heard a voice whispering “If you build it they will come.”

Maybe.  After all, Bob did much the same thing as Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, who in the movie Field of Dreams, acted on a little voice telling him to plow his crop under and build a baseball field.  In the middle of nowhere.  Friends, family, and neighbours thought Ray was crazy.  But “crazy is as crazy does.”  At least as Forrest Gump would have it.

What About Bob?

Bob Miller is many things—businessman, former municipal councillor, hockey coach, sports enthusiast, and community booster.  He also used to ride the keyboards in a local rock band.  But crazy?  No.  Catalyst?  Absolutely.

Bob is the lead character in one of the most interesting, innovative, and successful local infrastructure and economic development stories in western Canada.  This week I’m going to start telling that story.  I’ll finish it at the 2012 National Infrastructure Summit in Regina next week, and post that conclusion here as Part II after the summit.

Setting the Scene

I’ve known Bob for a long time.  We share the same home town—the small community of Vauxhall, Alberta.  Like many rural towns scattered across the western prairies, the last few decades for Vauxhall have been a struggle.  When rumours began to circulate that the province was thinking about closing the local high school because of declining enrolment, the town was devastated.  In a small rural community, the local school is more than an educational facility.  It’s a critical community, cultural, recreational, and social institution.

You lose the school, you lose the town.

I don’t think Bob heard voices.  But I do think Bob was tired of all the bad news.  I do think Bob was tired of waiting around for something good to happen.  So, Bob decided to make something happen.  On a morning in November 2004, he jumped into one of his Hy-Hoe excavators, crawled it over to the town’s run-down ballfield, and proceeded to rip the bucket into the fence and the bleachers, and bring the whole business down.

He didn’t ask for permission.  To build up, you first tear down.  It’s just that simple, and it was classic Bob.

Flashback

I’m getting ahead of myself.  The story actually goes back a lot further.  Western Canadians all know about the Winnipeg Jets.  Their departure devastated Winnipeg.  Their return brought restoration, redemption, and rejoicing.

But few westerners have ever heard of the Vauxhall Jets.  In the early 1950s, the Jets were a baseball club playing in the top amateur league in Alberta.  The club snatched the provincial title in 1956.  On the heels of that victory, the town built Jets Stadium.  With their own venue, the Vauxhall Jets went pro in 1957 and joined a pan-western Canadian league.  For the next 20 years, the Vauxhall Jets drew talent from across the US and Canada, and entertained thousands in southern Alberta.  By 1977, rising costs forced the Jets to fold.  The fans went home.  The stadium—now empty—was largely forgotten.

Whether he heard voices, whether he was tired of the bad news, or whether he wanted to bring a piece of the town’s history back to life, Bob got busy clearing away the rubble.  Alone.

Inspiration

You can’t sneeze in a small town without everyone hearing it, and it wasn’t long before Bob was joined by a few others.  The group now included Blaine (the former high school principal), Harry (a local welder), and Sid (electrical contractor and also my oldest brother).  These guys began to dream big—not little league but major league.  They found themselves captured—perhaps obsessed—by the vision of building in Vauxhall a truly world-class baseball field.

That takes money.  So, the guys dumped in some of their own cash.  And what did they buy first?

Lights.

According to Bob, you can’t have a world-class ball field without lights.  And when they were flicked on for the first time—powered by a borrowed diesel generator—the prairie around Vauxhall lit up.  The glow could be seen for 30 miles in every direction.

Creating Buzz

Who’s ever heard of a lighted baseball field in a tiny western Canadian prairie town?  Not me.  The concept sparked an enthusiastic buzz with dramatic results.  Dozens of volunteers lined up to join the effort.  Local contractors donated materials, equipment, and time.  Church groups helped out.  Even the local Hutterite colony—the Copperfield Colony—came on board.  Members of the colony kept the farm’s pre-fabrication shop busy over the winter by welding the bleachers, which were later hiked to the site and set in place.

By the time the new Jet’s Stadium was finished, over 10,000 volunteer hours had been logged into the field, and $100,000 in equipment and materials had been donated.  The result?  A new stadium valued at over $1 million.

The Plot Thickens

The new Jets Stadium is right across the road from the Vauxhall Junior-Senior High School, the same school reportedly on the province’s chopping block.  That got some of the educators thinking, who hatched the idea of establishing a baseball academy, which could put the new stadium to good use.  Plans were drawn up with the Horizon School Division, and the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball opened in 2006.

Today, there is a squad of some two dozen lads from various locales across Canada and the US that have moved from home to complete their high school in Vauxhall as members of the ball academy, which is professionally staffed by a head coach, assistant coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, a sports psychologist, athletic therapist, and a sports medicine trainer.  There is also a director of operations and a fund development manager.  The academy has scholarship and bursary programs, and hosts annual fundraisers.

The academy is certainly a draw, but so is the growing reputation of the quality of education at the school.  The Vauxhall High School has been ranked within the top 10 of Alberta’s 300 public schools.  Tuition at the academy is about $15,000 annually, which generates some $350,000 a year.  Enrolment at the school has stabilized, and little Vauxhall now hosts major league scouts who are scoping out talent.  Who would have thought?  Not in my lifetime.

The dreaming continues.  The hope is to lure a major league team to Vauxhall to conduct their spring training camp.

The good news also continues.

Seeing the potential, the province provided a community capital grant to complete Jets Stadium.  And, rather than closing the school, the province decided to renovate the entire facility to the tune of $18 million.  The new school has a specialized training centre and a new dormitory for the academy.

There’s even more.

The success of the ball academy has drawn the attention of a girl’s AAA hockey team, the Medicine Hat Hounds, who play in the Alberta Major Midget Female Hockey League.  The team was hard pressed to get ice time in Medicine Hat, and decided to play all their home games at the Vauxhall Recreation Complex.  Some girls in the hockey academy are now attending the Vauxhall High School as well.

Wow!

The Jets Stadium is essentially a piece of infrastructure, a word that sounds boring, dull, and dry.  This story brings infrastructure alive, and demonstrates its transformational power.  The economic development and social enrichment levered by the Jets Stadiumhave been astounding.  What’s more, the project was innovative from top to bottom, whether it was the idea, the design, the construction, the financing, the funding, or the delivery. And the facility also incorporates some really cool innovative technology.  That has to wait until next week.

Jets Stadium is a good news story, and Bob is proud to tell it.

“A project like this is virtually impossible to pull off in a large centre.  There are things that can be done more easily in a small community.”

Bang-on, Bob.   You did a pretty good job.

Back next week with the rest of the story.

By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst