High school football: Avon unveils new locker room facilities

AVON — For most of the past decade, Avon has had one of the best football programs in Ohio. Now it has one of the best athletic facilities to go along with it. On Friday, the Eagles showed off their newly renovated locker rooms, meeting rooms and training room with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Mark Wahlberg Chevrolet Stadium. "They needed some better space for the kids," said Matt Canning, who was one of the co-chairs of the committees titled Project Soar that oversaw the three-year project to transform the Eagles locker room and training room. "This program has grown over the years from 44 kids to well over 100 kids." The new space also includes a meeting area that can be used by all of the Eagles sports team to watch film, a locker room where the football team can meet by position, a players lounge and coaches locker room in addition to other upgrades. Over 70 percent of the $500,000 cost of the project came from private sources and donations of the materials and labor by the local business community. Prior to the ribbon-cutting, past and present Avon players gathered to admire the finished product. "It's a really nice facility that represents how much this community supports us as a whole," Avon senior All-Ohio quarterback Sam DeTillio said. "It gives us a place to bond together. In the past during two-a-days everyone would leave between sessions. Now everyone will pack a lunch and hang out here. We'll spend a lot of time together here and build better relationships with our teammates."Senior wide receiver/defensive back Drew Lindsay, whose father Jeff was one of the four co-chairs of Project Soar along with Canning, Zack Mitchell and Matt Ehrhardt, saw first-hand how much work went into bringing the project from concept to reality. "It's been a huge project, the parents and the donors have put in so much work," he said. "Not many kids have the privilege of having a locker room like this and we're all so thankful. I was honestly speechless when I saw the finished product." Avon football coach Mike Elder spoke to the gathering of players and their families, donors and local dignitaries before the ceremony and said in his 15 years at the school the team has gone from having one of the absolute worst locker rooms in high school to arguably one of the best in the country. "It's super exciting for our kids, that's for sure," Elder said. "To see them coming in and smiling and looking around means everything. They put in a lot of time and effort and heart and sweat and tears for this program."We work hard to raise money so we can do things to make things special for our kids. We've been successful and so have our other sports teams and it's pretty awesome to be a part of it. We tried to do this where it would benefit all of our student-athletes. There's a new training room and spaces that can be broken down so other fall sports teams can watch films in here as well." Senior captain and two-way lineman Amin Abdul said the new digs will be a motivating force for the Eagles to do big things again this season. "It's the coolest thing I've ever seen," he said. "It's just crazy to think how the whole community came together to make this possible for our football team. It makes all of us want to play harder because we're not just playing for ourselves, we're playing for the entire community."Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.