On sharing field equipment ,,, When I started at one school the softball equipment was trash ... I asked the AD for new stuff and he said he would put it on the list but wondered why I just didn't borrow baseballs equipment instead ... The baseball coach was very nice and lent me his paint wagon and his old 2 wheel chalk wagon ... After fixing his paint wagon it worked fine, after one use I returned it in working order and thanked him ... He told me I could keep the 2 wheel chalk wagon ... After trying to use it, I was left wondering what I had ever done to the baseball coach that he would lend me that piece of crap... It was impossible to push it in a straight line over any distance greater than a batters box ... I couldn't think of anyone I hated enough to lend it to and deposited in the school dumpster. They were among the first things I purchased in the budget ... That summer, the AD asked me if Football could borrow the paint wagon ... He said the football coach had been trying to get in touch with me ( LIE ) ... I agreed and brought the paint wagon to the football coaches office as a favor to the AD ... Fast forward through football season and countless e mails trying to get the paint wagon back, I finally found it near the football field in an equipment storage room under a bunch of other crap ... After cleaning it up and doing necessary general maintenance to it, it never again left the softball field or storage area. The football coach never acknowledged the loaner or said so much as hi, by or kiss my arse.
I can't believe football couldn't buy their own, with as much painting they need to do. Those robots are like $300/month plus I think like $100 year for the GPS service. Soccer and softball play at the same time and our fields share a fence, so sharing with them would be easy. The baseball field is a short drive. Maybe a half mile but most of that is parking lot. I hate loaning anything out. We've borrowed baseball's drag a couple times, but the ones we have are mostly OK.
We're trying to get some turf to do our 50 x 25 outdoor cage and a couple pitching warmup strips maybe 6 x 50 or so. One of my fellow softball obsessed dads found a place a couple hours away selling used soccer turf cut to size for cheap. Gonna bring that up at the boosters meeting tonight. Our cage looks so crappy. If a cage could be haunted, that's what ours looks like. We gotta get some things spruced up so the kids will want to use them. Sort-of a "If you build it, they will come" kind of thing.