As Phil Blue stood on the south end of the Shotwell Annex surveying the scene unfolding in front of him on the morning of April 13, he felt a sense of accomplishment. AISD’s Executive Director of Athletics realized the time had finally come to show off one of the district’s athletics improvements included in the 2018 bond election.
AISD hosted the District 2-6A Track and Field Meet on April 13-14 as boys’ and girls’ teams from Abilene High, Frenship, San Angelo Central, Midland Legacy, Midland High, Odessa High, and Odessa Permian descended on the district’s newest athletics venue. Built with funds from the bond election that passed in November 2018, the annex has hosted middle school football games and track meets, sub-varsity soccer matches and the Big Country Relays in 2021 (this year’s event was canceled because of weather).
But the varsity district track and field meet is the largest and most anticipated event in the facility’s short history.
“Part of the planning that went into this facility is that one day we would be able to host the district, area and regional track meets,” said Blue, who announced earlier this spring that he is retiring at the end of this school year. “A lot of work has been done by a lot of people to get this facility ready, and it’s exciting to be able to actually host the district track meet.”
Blue said the planning for a spring full of track meets at the annex began right after the Christmas break when he and Assistant Director of Athletics Del Van Cox laid out a plan for the rest of the school year.
“I told Del Van to stop whatever else he was working on and get ready for these track meets,” Blue said. “He has really done the heavy lifting on most of it. A lot of the work that goes into getting this ready are the things you don’t normally think about: do we have toilet tissue in the restrooms or are all the weeds gone? Then there are the parts that go into actually running the track meet: weighing the implements, setting out hurdles, getting everything set up and ready for the athletes to compete that take a lot of time.”
The entire Shotwell complex has undergone a transformation over the last several years that will continue into the fall of 2023 with the addition of new press box at Shotwell Stadium. A new video board will be in place by the time the 2022 football season kicks off, and the old press box will be torn down to make way for the new one shortly after the 2022 season ends.
In addition, new locker rooms were constructed on the south end of Shotwell Stadium, while new restroom facilities were added on the north end. New turf was added just a couple of years ago, and now the Shotwell Annex is up and running. All of those are points of pride for Blue, who nonetheless deflected any credit for the upgrade in AISD’s most visible athletics facilities.
“I point back to the community, which saw the needs out here and voted for the bond in 2018,” he said. “I think back to (former Board of Trustees president and current state representative) Stan Lambert and all the members of the Shotwell Committee from 20 years ago who laid the groundwork for the improvements at Shotwell, and we can’t thank those people enough for not letting that dream die. When all of this is done, this complex will really be a source of pride for the community.”
