Swampland to play on Tiger Field

The Terrebonne Parish School District unanimously approved night Swampland Baseball League games to be played on Tiger Field.

The vote came at last Tuesday night’s school board meeting.

“The thing I want to make sure is known is that this league is for the high school teams,” said Nathan Cotten, South Terrebonne head baseball coach, who went before the board. “So, it’s for the school district’s teams.”

“As long as it’s our children using our facilities, I don’t have a problem with it,” said board member Gregory Harding.

Teams will play at Tiger Field twice a week for two hours each night. Based on previous estimates, it will cost between $8 and $12 an hour to run electricity at the field, according to plant maintenance supervisor Ira Davis.

“To me that’s money well spent to keep our youth occupied,” said board member Roger Dale DeHart. “We know what they’re doing and where they are.”

Terrebonne is the only school in the public system with a lighted baseball field.

In 2005, the school received a grant from the Baseball Tomorrow Fund (BTF), a joint venture of Major League Baseball and its Players Association.

BTF corporate partner, Musco Lighting Inc., donated the lighting and the school board paid $44,000 to have it installed in 2006.

“We don’t have the funds to do any other parks,” DeHart said. “If the other schools can get the majority of the funds from somewhere else, anything is possible.”

South Terrebonne is having its field renovated this summer, but no lights will be installed.

The Swampland team plays its home games at the Dularge recreation field and some at Southland Field.

“Every year we have to make a request to the school board to use the fields during the summer,” said Cotten.

Swampland to play on Tiger Field