Cabarrus County, NC debuts new synthetic turf fields at West Cabarrus High School

“Athletes from across the district pull off a unique ribbon cutting in which they ran through the tape”

Credit: Thomas Lott PHOTOS Independent Tribune

As seen in the Independent Tribune HERE

CABARRUS COUNTY — Community leaders debuted the brand new turf fields at West Cabarrus High School on Monday.

The two fields — located at 4100 Weddington Road in Concord — are the third and fourth of their kind in the district joining similar setups at Cox Mill High School and J.M. Robinson High School. They also feature new TCool coated crumb rubber which reduces temperature by 30 to 50 degrees during the hottest times of the year, according to the company.

West Cabarrus High School’s new synthetic turf fields will be open to use throughout the district and will also host various events in the coming months including the Charlotte Heat Track Club Bring The Heat Invitational on April 24.

“This ceremony is a result of collaboration, which is at the heart of Cabarrus County’s mission: people, communities and government working together and staying focused on a successful future,” Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners Chair Steve Morris said.

Cabarrus County and the Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) were integral in the installation of all four synthetic turf fields now in the district.

Between the two organizations through funds produced from the county which includes occupancy tax, they were able to provide 360,000 square feet of athletic fields in the district. Investment from the county also allowed for the installation of the TCool system on the fields.

“On behalf of the Cabarrus County Board of Education, I cannot tell you how exciting it is for us to be here today,” Board of Education Chair Holly Grimsley said. “This is something Cabarrus County Schools has looked forward to for some time.

“I also cannot say how grateful we are to the CVB and to the county for what they have done to provide us with these fields.”

In addition to usage from the schools and the track event set to be held in two weeks at West Cabarrus High School, multiple summer time events will be hosted as well including Diamond Sports Group’s Summer Shine 2021 Football Tournament.

Diamond Sports Group is a sports marketing company with a testing combine component, Diamond Combine, which is designed to bring light to athletes who might not normally get the opportunity to participate in a national camp combine opportunity.

Their yearly Summer Shine Tournament is hosted across the country in places like Las Vegas and Myrtle Beach and it will now come to Cabarrus County for the first time this year.

“I’m humbled and excited to be a part of such a great community,”said Larry Kennedy, president of Diamond Sports Group.

He continued: “Summer Shine is the premier youth All-American tournament in the country, so when you start talking about summer tournaments, you start talking about locations, you start talking about, ‘Hey, where are we going to put our next event?’ We weren’t just looking for a locations, we were truly looking for a destination … and now, we wanted to add Cabarrus County to those list of cities and destinations across the country.”

West Cabarrus’s new turf fields have already gotten a good amount of use in the past few weeks as rain and storms have rendered many of the grass fields unusable at certain places in the district. Having locations like this to not only host large events which will bring people into the county, but also having them to service the entire Cabarrus County School district was very important.

“Once the fields were installed, we very quickly realized that this wasn’t going to benefit just the schools that the fields were located at,” Cabarrus County Schools Interim Superintendent Brian Schultz said. “In this, what I call the North Carolina monsoon season of March, we realized that all of Cabarrus County High Schools were able to benefit by being able to utilize the fields for practices, for games, and I was really, really impressed by the staff members at Cox Mill, J.M. Robinson and now West Cabarrus at how they worked together with the schools that had natural grass fields that they couldn’t play on because they were so wet.

“Really, just so grateful to them because they’ve worked internally well, they’ve worked externally well to share what is ours and not theirs. (Because it is) ours. I look forward to the expansion of the use of these fields into our communities and once again just want to say thank you to the Cabarrus County Visitors Bureau, the Cabarrus County Government officials, the Cabarrus County Schools staff and the Boards who all had to work together for the common good of our community.”

Athletes from across the district officially “cut” the ribbon by running through it together Monday. Every school across the district and nearly every sport was represented signifying how these fields are very much so the entire community’s which is what the CVB envisioned when imagining this project.

“What a fantastic thing this has become in a partnership not just between us but between our entire community,” said Donna Carpenter, president & CEO of Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Teamwork is at the center of the competitions that take place on these fields, and it’s also at the center of what brought these fields to fruition.”