By Mason Cavalier//

You may have noticed a new figure protruding from the Rosemont Avenue skyline this fall, courtesy of Hood College. Those figures, especially after dark, reveal themselves to be the new floodlights that surround Hood College’s Thomas Athletic Field. The lights obviously offer illumination for those on the field, but according to Hood’s Associate Director of Athletics Jack “Coach” Mehl, they also offer much more than that.

The lights, which were installed in June last summer, had been a wish list item for the athletic department ever since the turf arrived in 2009, so what was the hold up? “Well it was expensive,” Said Mehl. “President Chapdelaine made a commitment to get the lights up and worked with the Athletic Department, her office, and [the Office of] Institutional Advancement, and they did some fundraising for the lights.”

The lights have given Hood’s Athletic Department more flexibility than ever, allowing practices to be held past sundown, and letting teams play “under the lights.” According to Mehl, “It’s been nice because we have some part-time coaches, so the best time for them to practice would be early in the morning, and it used to be that at 6 o’clock it’s light for a little while, but in the middle of September its darker.”

Mehl also acknowledged the five different teams that, before the installation of the lights, all had to squeeze into a tight sunrise and sunset schedule. With coaches also trying to also schedule around their player’s classes, headaches were abundant. “I think it’s been nice, it’s been nice for the teams,” said Mehl. “It’s always important not to miss classes, and that’s always been the issue, trying to schedule around the classes.”

The addition of night games has led to a definite increase in attendance, with spectators now able to watch their teams play without worrying about classes of their own. With Hood’s Men’s Soccer team now averaging nearly 300 viewers per game, the players have noticed a change.

The Blazer’s sophomore Goalkeeper Danny Castillo said: “We notice that a lot more people show up during the night games.” Junior Defender Hirvin Polanco added to Castillo’s sentiment, saying that, “Having the crowd cheer for you gets you going, it motivates you to do better.”

Castillo continued on to say that at a Women’s Soccer game earlier in the year, the large night game crowd stormed the field after a dramatic overtime victory. “I mean, last year people couldn’t even make the girls games… but this year, we have a lot of students and even parents who are able to make the game because it’s at night.”

While easier for scheduling and spectating, there have been unforeseen side effects of the turf’s broader availability. “It has put a strain on our training staff,” Mehl stated. “Sometimes a team has practice at 6 o’clock in the morning and then another team practices from eight to 10 at night, which means that’s a sixteen-hour day for our trainers.”

The athletic department has taken steps to alleviate this problem, however. Usually, the training room is open during set times during the day, with those set times sometimes carrying on for the entire day. To lessen the strain on trainers, on certain days those hours are shortened. “We can’t have our trainers here all the time,” Mehl said.

The lights normally come on just before sunset, and are scheduled to turn off at 10 p.m. for the convenience of the local homeowners living adjacent to the field and the lights. During the light’s inaugural semester however, there have been occasional hiccups.

Joseph Carroll, junior Midfielder for the Blazer’s Men’s Lacrosse team, told a story of how he and his teammates were once accidentally left in the dark. “We were on the field after Men’s Soccer at about 8:45, and we were in our warm-up drills, and the lights just shut off. Immediately,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think they knew we were practicing still, and it took a solid fifteen-thirty-ish minutes for them to come back on so we could practice!”