Home sweet home
Iowa Central provides rooms, meals for many softball teams
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> The Southeast Polk softball team has some fun posing for a photo a dorm room at Iowa Central Community College, where they are staying this week during the state softball tournament.
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> Brinley Cope, of Southeast Polk, listens to music in her dorm room at Iowa Central Community College as she and her teammates prepare to face Ankeny Centennial in the 5A semifinals in Fort Dodge.
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> Berkley Weiland, a member of the Southeast Polk softball team, has some down time with her teammates at the dorms at Iowa Central Community College Thursday during state tournament week.
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> The Southeast Polk softball team has some fun posing for a photo a dorm room at Iowa Central Community College, where they are staying this week during the state softball tournament.
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> Brinley Cope, of Southeast Polk, listens to music in her dorm room at Iowa Central Community College as she and her teammates prepare to face Ankeny Centennial in the 5A semifinals in Fort Dodge.
-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla <BR> Berkley Weiland, a member of the Southeast Polk softball team, has some down time with her teammates at the dorms at Iowa Central Community College Thursday during state tournament week.
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For Iowa high school softball players competing at the highest level, Harlan and Hazel Rogers Sports Complex is the site of all the action this week.
And for hundreds of players, their home away from home this week is Iowa Central Community College.
For decades, the college has housed and fed many of the softball teams. The availability of the dorms and cafeteria is one of the key reasons the tournament has been in Fort Dodge for 56 years and will continue to be for at least 20 more years thanks to a recently signed contract extension.
"We love hosting them," college President Jesse Ulrich said.
He said coaches like the convenience of the campus, while school districts and the Iowa High School Girls Athletic Union like the cost effectiveness of using college facilities. He said the college gives the teams a "pretty discounted rate" on room and board.
Ulrich said 75 percent to 80 percent of the teams participating in this year's tournament are staying at Iowa Central. That equals about 35 teams with about 30 people per team. The bottom line of all those numbers is that about 1,000 people are staying on campus.
"We get pretty full," Ulrich said.
He said the teams are housed in the dorms on the main part of the campus. The towers close to Kenyon Road are not used.
The teams get their meals in the Triton Cafe on campus.
They have access to campus practice fields.
Transportation is about the only service the college doesn't provide to the teams, so campus parking lots are now filled with school district buses and vans.
The possibility that this on-campus experience during the tournament may help to recruit future Iowa Central student-athletes isn't lost on Ulrich.
"The fact that they arrive and have this kind of experience really changes their mindset of what Fort Dodge is," he said.