Glesenkamp, Big Walnut AD, expects another exciting fall for Golden Eagles

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut High School Ath­letic Direc­tor Steve Gle­senkamp was in his office last week prepar­ing for the high school’s fall sports sea­son. He said that some sports had lost key team mem­bers to grad­u­a­tion over the past two years and are rebuild­ing, other sports have mature teams com­ing online for the 2012–13 school year.

Gle­senkamp said that cycle is typ­i­cal of high school ath­let­ics, but with the Big Wal­nut area’s youth teams teach­ing fun­da­men­tals and the mid­dle school ath­letic pro­grams focus­ing on teach­ing from high school play­books and coach­ing expec­ta­tions, he’s expect­ing an excit­ing fall season.

“We have a lot of con­ti­nu­ity with head coaches com­ing back, and that’s a good thing,” Gle­senkamp said. “The down side is last fall’s weather was very hard on all our fields, there was so much stand­ing water, but we didn’t have any choice but to use them. They’ll take sev­eral years to com­pletely repair. The good news is, they’re on the mend.”

Big Wal­nut foot­ball fans are look­ing for­ward to the newly-refurbished Big Wal­nut High School Sta­dium foot­ball field. Dur­ing the spring new drainage was installed, the field was re-graded with a one per­cent grade crown from the cen­ter of the field to the side­lines, a ground-water sys­tem was installed, and the field reseeded.

“Var­i­ous com­pa­nies con­tracted to do parts of the job,” Gle­senkamp said. “We bud­geted $101,000, but came in at $87,200. We’re one of the last teams in the OCC (Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence) to have an in-ground water­ing sys­tem on the foot­ball field. It takes two to three years for the grass to grow deep roots, so we’ll have to reseed in the fall and spring.”

Gle­senkamp said the high school foot­ball field had not been re-graded and re-crowned, new drainage installed, and reseeded since the 1960’s. And con­sid­er­ing the cost of installing and main­tain­ing arti­fi­cial turf, the high school is for­tu­nate to have a ser­vice­able grass foot­ball field.

“We’re going to see changes in the OCC Cap­i­tal Division’s eight teams,” Gle­senkamp said. “Hilliard Bradley is leav­ing, Olen­tangy is com­ing in. That’s a big change. And in 2013–14 in the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion, Watkins Memo­r­ial is leav­ing to join the Lick­ing County League and Wor­thing­ton Kil­bourne is com­ing in. In our divi­sion that’s big news on the horizon.”

Gle­senkamp said Ohio High School Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion tour­na­ment affil­i­a­tions would remain the same as last year; that every two years the num­bers are reviewed to deter­mine whether a school is in Divi­sion I, Divi­sion II or Divi­sion III.

“We’re still Divi­sion II in foot­ball and right now boys and girls tracks are our only Divi­sion I sports,” Gle­senkamp said. “We’re right on the edge (in foot­ball). When we bump up to Divi­sion I we will be one of the small­est schools in the divi­sion – but it’s all about the numbers.”

Gle­senkamp said it doesn’t mat­ter what divi­sion Big Wal­nut is in; that he’s con­fi­dent Big Wal­nut student-athletes will have a sea­son they can be proud of.

“A Big Wal­nut team can be in a rebuild­ing year or field­ing a mature team, in the class­room or on the field and court, our stu­dent ath­letes give it their best and they never give up,” Gle­senkamp said. “I’m look­ing for­ward to a great fall sports sea­son and school year.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.