MBUSD, MB/X unveil West Field
Mira Costa’s new West Field. Photo by Carey Fujita/South Bay Drones
One night earlier this week Gary Wayland stopped by the Mira Costa High School campus to check on the newly completed West Field.
Wayland, the founder and chairman of the MB/X Foundation, had worked towards the construction of the state-of-the-art turf practice field for most of a decade. He helped envision it, fundraised, and recruited its project manager, contractor Johnny C. Morgan, to join MB/X back in 2009 with something like this very much in mind.
Wayland arrived at the field a particularly satisfied man. The sparkling tw0-toned green Astroturf looked beautiful in the early evening light. Nobody was around. And so he walked out to the Mustang logo at the 50-yard line and laid down.
“I looked at it and said, ‘You know, I’ll never get this chance again,” Wayland said. “‘I’m just going to lay down for a minute. Nobody bother me; I’m perfectly happy here.’”
He wasn’t alone in his happiness. West Field’s completion added another jewel to a Mira Costa campus that is quickly transforming. The baseball boosters club returfed the adjacent football field, and the designs for a new gym, Mustang Pavilion, are near completion.
“I think the facilities are making a huge difference,” said Jennifer Williams, MB/X executive director. “All the work done through bond measures over the last eight to 10 years, including the new math and science building, the new Mustang mall — we have upgraded a lot. We’ve done it piecemeal, over time, but it’s the whole package at Mira Costa. Sure, the new field is wonderful, but we are an academic school with great athletics and a great extracurricular experience.”
MB/X’s $2 million grant for West Field was the largest in MB/X’s 17-year history. Manhattan Beach Unified School District provides the rest of the $5 million project. The 305-foot wide, 492-foot long field is located along Meadows Avenue and is to be lined for soccer, lacrosse, rugby, football, baseball, softball, discuss, and marching band. The field is covered with Astroturf; underneath, a foot-deep, multi-layered “shock pad” makes the field softer and safer for athletes.
“I think clearly it becomes another one of those fortunate endeavors that allows the community, more than just the students, to have a really useful new facility,” said Morgan, the project manager. “It’s a shoe-in for students. It provides a new practice field to play on, where before they had to practice on a semi-playable dirt grass field. It was needed — a nice, pristine turf field. That’s a lot better than a sand lot, and that’s how bad it was.”
Morgan said the rise of women’s athletics over the last two decades meant practice field capacity wasn’t nearly enough at Mira Costa.
“Meaning girls are on par with guys now, playing sports,” Morgan said. “And having lower level freshman and JV teams means we need twice as much field space now…The same thing is going on with Little League and lower level soccer, the same kind of need occurs and there is simply not enough quality fields around. So a field like this becomes a windfall, a boon for everybody.”
Morgan said 400 to 700 kids were on the field both days last weekend. “It really makes me think, ‘What can be done next?’” he said.
MB/X, so named because the foundation focuses on funding “beyond the classroom,” has now given $4.8 million in grants to MBUSD projects, including the resurfacing of the track around Waller Stadium Field and installing new turf on that field.
“For us, this has been a nine-year process,” Wayland said. “For us to devote $2 million of our resources on it — this really is a signature moment, and we are very proud of it. I think it looks great, and it’s going to be fantastic for the Costa community and an incredible resource for the entire community.”
Wayland said that all of Costa’s improvements, from the bond measure work to the athletic facilities, are possible because parents have stepped up.
“I think it’s a tribute to the parents and stakeholders of MB/X,” Wayland said. “When my son went to Costa, we weren’t quite at the same place as today, where parents are asked to pay for buses and coaches stipends, for uniforms and tournament fees. They are paying for practically everything….Choir and band parents make huge contributions to maintain those activities, which MB/X supports as well. And without those parents and stakeholders, there clearly would not be a new West Field.”