Clark College softball players Chloe Blehm and Tori Roush take pride every day to make sure their program’s field not only is presentable for themselves for practices, but also spectators for this season’s upcoming games.
“We spend so much time on it,” said Roush, a sophomore and Heritage High School graduate.
But players and coaches said Tuesday that unwelcome guests — homeless individuals turned vandals — continue to be an ongoing problem.
Head coach Meghan Crouse said she’s dealt with issues stemming from the homeless since being hired at Clark before the 2017 season, but nothing like what her program’s experienced since August: Witnessing homeless sleeping in dugouts or seeing tents in the dugouts, equipment vandalized or finding drug paraphernalia or human waste in and around the complex.
And that doesn’t include what her team experienced Monday, the first day back to practice on the field in preparation for the 2019 season: the program’s batting cage, an estimated cost of $5,000, was found damaged beyond use.
That, players and coaches said, reached their breaking point in terms of frustration.
“Why would we buy another batting cage if we can’t trust it being out here,” said Blehm, a sophomore and Prairie High School graduate.
Said Roush: “They just ruin everything.”
In terms of cost to replace, Crouse said she isn’t sure her program can purchase another cage.
Clark’s season opener is a crossover tournament Feb. 23-24 in Tri-Cities, but practices continue daily until then.
Crouse added she already lost the public-address system because vandals broke into the press box for the second time in a year and stole equipment worth an estimated $7,000. In her tenure as head coach, Crouse said she estimates at least $30,000 of equipment has been stolen and/or damaged.
Almost daily, Crouse said, she and assistant coach Brian Blehm sweep through the softball field picking up drug paraphernalia, cigarette butts and human waste, “so the girls don’t have to.”
For players like Chloe Blehm, a pitcher, she said it’s unsettling to know those individuals are looming at the field, just east of Interstate 5 and adjacent to Clark’s baseball field, Kindsfather Field.
“We’re young women,” she said, “and it’s an easy target when we have one guy (Chloe’s dad, Brian Blehm) here. Without him here, we feel very vulnerable.”
Naturally, Crouse wants the best for her players.
“If something doesn’t get done sooner,” the coach said, “something bad is going to happen, and that is my biggest fear.”
The Columbian’s attempts Tuesday to reach Clark College athletic director Chris Jacob for comment were unsuccessful.
