KOSCIUSKO — Concerned Ethel High School football parents gathered at the Attala County Chancery Building to address the need for a new field house for football, baseball and softball during the Attala County School Board meeting Monday night.
The board voted to have the asbestos checked in the current athletic field house as well as two houses on McAdams High School campus, to hire an architect and advertise for bids on a facility.
Christie Moody, a football parent and registered nurse, told the board there were two definite issues with facility – structural issues and health concerns.
Moody passed around pictures of the inside and outside of the structure showing damages and disrepair.
“The junior high football team dressed out for practice and after they left, part of the ceiling fell,” she said. “Thankfully, they weren’t in there so no one got hurt.”
“It’s awful. We can go to away games and have better facilities to use than what we have at home.”
She added that there isn’t a place for the athletes to shower after ball games if they needed and the floor is rotten in front of the urinals.
“They have to watch where they step so they don’t fall through the floor,” she said.
Numerous athletes over the years have gotten Staphylococcus or Staph infections through direct contact with the field house.
“Staph is a bad cookie,” Moody said.
Staphylococcus is a group of bacteria that can cause a multitude of diseases as a result of infection of various tissues of the body.
The bacteria can live on a non-living thing for up to three days, Moody said.
“This building is wood,” she said. “It’s dark. It’s damp. It’s rotten. It’s porous. It can live longer in that wood than three days.”
“The infection has to be treated with specific antibiotics and if not treated it can kill you,” she said. “We are allowing our children to be in harms way.”
“The best thing for that building is to bulldoze it down and never see it again,” Moody said.
Superintendent Larry Stevens agreed with Moody saying it was by far “the worst building in the district.”
“If the board votes to do that, then we will find the money somewhere,” Stevens said. “I don’t know if we can find money to build a building on the other end. That’s the next thing that’s going to come up.”
EHS head football coach Paul Dees said he knew that originally plans had been drawn to build separate facilities for football, baseball and softball but it would be more cost effective to tear the current building down and put a new one in it’s place for football and baseball and remodel the weight room for a girls softball facility.
