Aug 19, 2003 By Justin Zackal For The 3 min read

JEFFERSON – The old schoolhouse at Jefferson-Morgan High School’s football stadium will soon resemble the tombstones beyond the south end zone in contrast to a new facility beyond the opposite end zone. Though the team’s new field house at Parker Field will not be ready for the 2003 season, there is much anticipation as the Rockets spend their final days in the antiquated building that houses the team’s locker room and weight room.

“It’s going to be a beautiful facility, said Jan Haiden, who enters his 12th season as head coach. “It’s something we needed for a long time.”

The new field house will include a weight room, wrestling rooms, public restrooms, a concession stand, dressing room for officials, a training room and locker rooms for both the home and visiting teams. The schoolhouse only had one locker room.

“This place has served its purpose,” Haiden said. “But a new facility is way overdue.”

According to Haiden, the schoolhouse needed $250,000 in renovations just to make the internal structure of the facility sufficient.

However, the expense for the new field house will not exceed the cost of renovating the schoolhouse. That makes a sensible need for the new building.

“It’s like anywhere else,” Haiden said. “Some people are glad to see it go up, but some people think it’s useless. But the people who believe we don’t need it never spent time in this place here.”

Work on the new field house began last August, but progress slowed because of a weather conditions during the winter months.

“Our custodian staff busted their tails; that’s who did most of the work,” Haiden said. “They built the frame on their own. If the winter months weren’t as bad as they were, we would be in there this season. But come last November, they couldn’t work all the way through March.

“I think we had only 18 days with no rain or snow from November through May, so the weather really hurt us.”

This year marks the second training camp that the Rockets had to practice on their game field, because the site of the new field house is on their old practice field. However, Parker Field shows no sign of wear and tear.

“It’s a wonderful field,” Haiden said.

“They take care of it, they water it, and a guy comes in professionally and reseeds it and sprays for weeds. We practiced on this field two or three times a day last year and it rained every week, so it stayed in great shape.”

By next year, the empty lot in front of the stadium will be used as the team’s practice field.

The future is even looking brighter for Jefferson-Morgan on the field, not just the surroundings.

The numbers are again up at the Class A school with 41 players, 17 of which are freshmen.

The Rockets, after finishing last year with a 2-7 record, will look to qualify for the WPIAL playoffs this year for the first time in three years.