The Durango Demons Booster Club is rallying to raise money for upgrades to its weight and wrestling room at Durango High School, aiming to have the facility ready for students by next semester.
The booster club set an ambitious goal of raising $80,000 for the project by Sept. 30 but ended up collecting around $62,150. Despite falling short, club president Brian Beal remains optimistic, saying the outlook for funding is still positive.
He said there will be more fundraising efforts heading into winter to make the athletic facility renovations a reality.
Through partnerships with Colorado Gives and the Daniels Fund Grant Program, the booster club has secured financial matching for the amount of money raised.
“I think we’re going to have more than enough to not only fund the weight room and the wrestling room, but maybe still have some money to spare to do some other initiatives that DHS needs,” Beal said.
The future weight room renovation will help not only the athletes who participate in the 22 DHS athletic programs but also DHS students who participate in physical education classes.
DHS Athletic Director Ryan Knorr said the weight racks haven’t been upgraded since the 1990s, and no improvements have been made to the weight room during his six years at the school.
Last year, the athletic department transformed the former wrestling room into a weight room to take advantage of the larger space.
Knorr said there were concerns about students lifting heavy weights in a cramped space.
But it left the wrestling and dance teams sharing a smaller outdated space.
“There’s missing tiles and broken glass on the wall. That’s a 40-year-old building, and it’s starting to really show,” Beal said about the wrestling room.
The project will look to freshen up the wrestling room with new mats and mirrors.
Weight room additions will include new mats, weight racks, a turf strip for agility and plyometric drills, and resistance band hooks.
The athletic department and the booster club wanted to create a weight room that is less intimidating for beginners.
In the constantly evolving landscape of fitness and exercise science, parents and members of the DHS athletic department have realized that the current weight room lacks equipment that caters to the diverse needs of all sports, not just those that focus on heavy weightlifting.
“A big goal of what we’re trying to do is to bring in equipment that is less intimidating to especially new lifters, but also more gender friendly, to where it’s a place for anybody and everybody to train,” Knorr said.
Beal said the idea is to create a weight room that’s just as functional for the football team as it is for the ski team.
The estimated total cost of the project is between $120,000 and $130,000 for just the weight room renovations and upgrades. The total cost including the wrestling room has yet to be determined.
Funding for athletic department infrastructure isn’t always easy to come by.
While the district allocates a budget for its athletic programs and can receive funding through voter-approved bond initiatives, athletic programs often fall lower on the priority list compared to essential infrastructure upgrades, such as HVAC systems.
“Eighty-seven percent of every dollar that the district receives from the state goes to paying salaries,” Beal said. “And when you have that 13% leftover, there is not a lot of money to go around to all the different facilities.”
The district is pursuing a $150 million bond in November that will provide more upgrades to the school’s existing infrastructure and fund a new school building at Three Springs.
“It’s neat that our booster club – they’ve previously gone from trying to fund specific equipment and team specific needs, and now they really said, let’s try to do something that benefits all students,” Knorr said.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
