Youth football program building permanent home

WASILLA — The days of Pop Warner football having to scramble for field time may soon be behind it.

Earlier this month, students with Northern Industrial Training in Palmer started working to clear off and level space to build four fields — three game fields and a practice field — for the program.

Clint Spencer with the Mat-Su Steelers and Seahawks said the program has grown by leaps and bounds after Mat-Su Youth Football closed its doors. Last year there were 217 enrolled, this year it’s 350. He expects that growth will continue.

“Everyone’s moving to Wasilla,” Spencer said.

He said the city gave the program a 10-year lease on the land. The complex is on Mystery Avenue, directly adjacent to the existing Bumpus Recreation Area complex of baseball and soccer fields.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright said the idea is to give the program 10 years and, after that, if they’re doing what they said they’d do, look at a longer lease.

“We’re glad to do this and if they perform it will go into a long-term, 20-years-at-a-pop legacy lease,” Rupright said.

Spencer said that the football park will be the first in the Valley and probably only the second in the state — the only other one is in Eagle River. Right now, his teams have to play and practice at Teeland Middle School, Tanaina Elementary School and Wasilla High School.

“We have to work around soccer, we have to work around high school football,” he said.

Spencer said that the three game fields will serve the program’s needs but, if there’s overflow, the practice field will be the size of five football fields and a fourth game field could be carved out of it.

Rupright said that sports facilities are a big economic draw to Wasilla. He noted that the last time the city hosted a major statewide volleyball tournament, merchants saw the impact.

“McDonald’s ran out of food two times in one day,” he said.

Deputy City Administrator Bert Cottle said that the football fields will complete the city’s suite of sports facilities. There are already skating rinks and baseball diamonds, a Mat-Su Borough swimming pool and gymnasiums in which to play basketball.

“We’re not missing anything out here,” Cottle said.

Dan Tucker, an instructor with Northern Industrial Training, said that the heavy equipment class doing the work Thursday is one of the best he’s ever seen.

“What these students have done is far and above what you would normally expect,” he said.

He said that he and an instructor cleared enough room to get cars off the road and an office trailer on the property.

“The students have done literally everything since then,” he said.

Joey Crum, NIT’s president and CEO, said that NIT likes to partner with “like-minded organizations” for these kinds of projects. NIT is family-owned and that family contains four brothers, all of whom grew up in Alaska and played high school football.

“You say, ‘football,’ we come running,” Crum said.

Of the nine-person crew of students working on the fields, five are veterans — four from the Army and one form the Marine Corps. He said that NIT likes to work with veterans. They epitomize the school’s core principles and they are in-demand in the job market.

“In fiscal year 2014 we had 100 percent placement of all of our veterans who were eligible for employment,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.