PALMER — Reaction ranged from surprised to stunned as area coaches learned of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Anchorage late last week by a pair of Colony High School softball players.

Myrl Thompson, a member of the school board and the head coach of the Wasilla High School baseball program, said he was, “just blown away,” when he heard of the suit against the Mat-Su School District, that alleges discrimination against the Colony softball program’s and the district’s violation of Title IX, an amendment that mandates equal treatment of both boys and girls sports.

Thompson, who championed a recent effort to promote softball and baseball from club to full-sport status within the Mat-Su School District, questioned the timing of such a drastic measure.

Frontiersman file photo A lawsuit filed by two Colony High School softball players alleges unfair distribution of resources.

“I would like to see the baseball and softball communities be on the same page, and try to remedy this problem together,” Thompson said in a meeting with Frontiersman reporters Monday morning. “The answer is within arm’s reach. But it’s not doing us any good, those that really care about those two sports, to file a lawsuit against the district that struggled to put every available dime we could into softball and baseball.”

The school board voted 7-0, last spring, to promote baseball and softball to full-time sports, in what Thompson called, “a relatively tough year to get funding.”

“We felt it was a good thing to do,” Thompson said.

With full-sport status, Thompson said, each school will be allocated more than $20,000 to help fund its baseball and softball programs.

The baseball and softball programs from each school with an ASAA-sanctioned prep baseball or softball team, can bank on $7,500 to go toward transportation costs and about $3,000 for coaches stipends for each sport, each season.

The plaintiffs, a freshman and senior at Colony High and their respective parents, are only listed by initials on official court documents.

Samuel Schiller, a Tennessee-based lawyer who specializes in Title IX cases and the attorney representing the Colony players, said a primary motive for the action is the belief of the lack of quality facilities for local softball programs.

With it being related to Title IX, Schiller said there is a gender issue, but he believes there is more to the suit.

“This isn’t a boys against girls thing. The plaintiffs aren’t interested in harming boys’ sports,” Schiller said late Monday afternoon. “Part of it is getting better facilities.”

Schiller, who estimates he’s taken 50-60 Title IX cases to federal court across the country, said the plaintiffs are not asking for money.

“They’re taking the high road here,” the lawyer said.

Instead, the players are seeking improvement in resources.

The suit specifically states the use of Hermon Brothers Field by the Colony High School boys baseball team, and according to court documents, the suit alleges the imbalance in treatment of female and male athletes in the Mat-Su public schools demonstrates the Mat-Su public schools’ failure to comply with Title IX.

Court documents call Hermon Brothers Field, “a high quality regulation field with excellent features such as high quality dugouts, bleachers and electronic scoreboard.” The file also states the CHS baseball program is given “preferential, if not exclusive use of its practice field during the season.”

Jamie Mayo, the longtime head coach of the Colony High School baseball team, said on Monday he was very surprised to hear of the lawsuit, and called the information in the court documents that pertains to his team as, “extremely inaccurate.”

Mayo said the Knights do not have a baseball diamond to use as a practice facility and their opportunity to play at Hermon Brothers Field, a property owned by the Alaska State Fair and managed by the Mat-Su Miners summer collegiate developmental baseball organization, a courtesy of the Miners.

“We practice on that back soccer field at Colony High School. It’s horrible,” Mayo said. “There are big ruts, big holes. I told my baseball kids, if they can field a ground ball on this field, they can field a ground ball anywhere in the state.

“That’s been our practice field since I’ve been at Colony, and that’s going on 17 years.”

Both the Colony and Palmer High School boys baseball programs are allowed the use of the Hermon Brothers — a facility not owned or operated by the Mat-Su Borough or Mat-Su Borough School District — thanks to a cooperative effort that is nearly two decades old, Mat-Su Miners general manager Pete Christopher, the man in charge of Hermon Brothers, said Monday evening.

Christopher said there is no monetary charge for the use of the fields, but coaches, players and parents from the two local programs do volunteer their time every spring to help maintain the facility.

“It’s a good thing for the (Alaska State Fair) and a good thing for the Miners that we get to help out,” Christopher said. “And it helps out the high schools.”

Mayo said the local baseball programs do whatever they can to help out, to show their gratitude for the use of the field.

“Every year, generally the first week of the year we can get out there, Palmer and Colony go through the whole field, get the mud, ice and trash out, work on the dugouts, bring the batting cages out, do all the general labor,” Mayo said. “When we do play on the field, the home team, whether it is Palmer or Wasilla, is responsible to prep the field. And when the game is over we are responsible to work on the mound, home plate, drag the infield.”

Thompson said a similar volunteer effort led to the refurbishing of baseball fields at Wasilla and Houston High School, the only two prep baseball facilities on school property in the Mat-Su Valley.

Mayo added that Hermon Brothers Field is not typically ready for use until late in the high school season. Until then, the fields at Wasilla and Houston are the only options to host a home game.

In recent seasons, local prep softball programs have played their home games at the Bumpus Ball Fields softball complex in Wasilla.

The complex, managed by the Mat-Su Borough, is also home to the Mat-Su Softball Association adult recreational league. In May, a scheduling conflict between the two groups left the two existing prep programs at the time — Colony and Wasilla —temporarily without a home.

Mat-Su Softball is permitted to sell alcohol at its games. When the prep and adult seasons intersected, and alcohol began being sold at adult games, the prep teams could no longer play there.

In reaction to that problem, Thompson and Wasilla High School head softball coach Cindy Wisdom led an effort to repair an existing softball field adjacent to Wasilla High to give local softball players a place to play.

“We worked really hard, and actually got to play against Colony in the last game (of the season) on that field,” Wisdom said Monday evening.

Wisdom, who will enter her second year as WHS head coach this spring, said she was, “shocked,” to learn of the law suit against the school district.

“I think we’ve come a long way in the past six months,” Wisdom said, referring to the school district’s action to recognize baseball and softball as official school sports. “Change doesn’t happen over night. It takes a lot of different work from a lot of different people.”

Wisdom, who was very active with youth and high school baseball in Wasilla before she took the reigns of the WHS softball program, said she is pleased with the newly allocated funding for her sport.

She also said the softball field at WHS will be ready for use this spring.

“Absolutely,” Wisdom said. “We just need to bring in some Round-Up and clean up all the weeds.”

In addition to that field at Wasilla High, Thompson said the school board, which organized an activities task force to address such issues, would like to make the necessary improvements to an existing softball field that sits behind Colony Middle School, and sees that a permanent home for local prep softball games in the future.

Thompson said the Knights softball team currently uses that diamond as their practice field.

“That’s actually the field we have in line to fix up, make even nicer,” Thompson said. “It’s right in their school complex. It’s pretty nice.”

Schiller said, now that the suit has been filed, the defendant will have 20 days to respond.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.