Idaho Falls Tigers open new athletic complex
IDAHO FALLS (KIFI) - Idaho Falls High School officially cut the ribbon on its new baseball and softball fields Monday.
In the movie 'Field of Dreams,' James Earl Jones famously said, "This field, this game - it's a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again."
The Idaho Falls Tigers have built it, and people have come.
Frontier Fields, formerly known as the Tiger Athletic Complex, was once a farmer's field as well. Five years later, it's the new home of IFHS baseball and softball.
The first baseball game on the field was played March 26th. It wasn't exactly ready, though. There were no bleachers. The walls were bare cinder block. There were no foul poles, no scoreboard, no lights, and the dugouts didn't even have roofs.
Funding held up much of the complex's construction for its five-year development period.
“We relied upon donors, as well as businesses that could provide product,” explained head baseball coach Trent Johnson back in March. “The sod was donated for the entire facility. The concrete block was donated for the entire facility.”
The complex was initially funded with $2 million from the school board, former Idaho Falls athletic director Pat Lloyd said, but they’ve had to seek private donors and sponsors as well.
Those deals had raised an additional $1.5 million, but Johnson cautioned they'd need to double that. Six months later, they tripled it.
"Without local businesses, without the generosity of Frontier [Credit Union], the reality of this is we're not here today," Johnson said Monday.
"It's just the funding of schools," he continued. "They're academic institutions, right? The funding for extracurricular activities is just not there. So for Frontier to step up with a $3 million naming rights deal, it's just massive."
The fields are now playable, but still have a little ways to go. They still lack scoreboards, bullpens, and bleachers.
The Tigers will play at the complex full-time starting in the spring. The school's soccer team will make the move in the fall of 2025.
