Dugouts

Hello All,

Yesterday was a great day for the MBC softball program. After being in existence as a varsity sport at MBC since 2001, we finally got dugouts. It has been a work in progress for the last 6-8 months and finally it all came together. We had some key people in this project, one being a donor of the timber and the other a professor of engineer at VMI, who basically designed the plans and implemented the framing work of the dugouts. Our grounds crew here at MBC did the physical labor of getting everything ready on our end for it to happen.  The engineering class at VMI spent a lot of tireless weekends to make this happen before yesterday even began.
Saturday morning started out with everyone coming together- MBC softball team, VMI cadets, family and friends, etc. We got instructions on what to do step by step and even though it started a little slow, by that afternoon both dugouts were up. I can't tell you how pleased I was to see everyone working so well together. Everyone seemed to have a great time and everyone did something to help with the dugouts.
We did stop for a quick lunch break with pizza and cake. I am sure you wonder why cake but it was a softball player's birthday as well on Saturday. We all sang Happy Birthday to her  (I'm sure she was a little embarassed) and after about 20 minutes of rest and food, we went out to finish the final touches of the dugouts.
At the very end, we did a blessing of the dugouts with good luck, etc. and we had to cut some limbs from an existing tree and put them at the top of the dugout. After the gentleman told me what it was about, he asked me who I wanted to do it. I wanted my seniors to be the ones to do it. For some of them, it has been on their wish list for 4 years- of course, it's been on my list for ten years. We all watched each of them put their limb at the top of one of the dugouts and then the very last one we wanted our trainer, Charlie, to do it. After he was done, he yelled "Mary Baldwin College, Home of the Fighting Squirrels" and everybody erupted in yells and claps. What a way to end the day and to start the season off!
Until next time . . . . GO SQUIRRELS!!!!!!