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A Diamond From The Rough

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By GEOFF FOX, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 22, 2008

SAN ANTONIO - There used to be an actual baseball field at San Antonio Boys Village.

Over the past decade, though, grass had grown in the base paths, foliage bloomed around the chain-link backstop and paint was peeling from the wooden fences.

That changed Monday afternoon, when about 25 Saint Leo University students spent several hours transforming the grassy lot back to its former condition - if not making it better. It was part of a community service project spearheaded by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity's Social Work Club.

Saint Leo workers used tractors, graders and fertilization equipment to form a clay infield and plant new grass. The Martin Luther King Jr. Day project was the brainchild of university students Brandon Cooke, a sophomore majoring in sport business, and Amanda Gosizk, a junior majoring in social work.

"We just thought they deserved to play on something besides a grass field with lots of ants," Gosizk said.

Cooke said the idea developed after the Social Work Club visited the facility and noticed the field could be improved.

"We come up here a couple times a year and play kickball and softball," he said.

Saint Leo students picked the perfect time of year to do the project, said Al Capodiferro, executive director of the village a residential facility for teenage boys who have gotten into some kind of trouble with the law.

"In the summer, it's just too hot to play out here," he said.

As the temperature rose Monday afternoon, Saint Leo students whitewashed a fence, striped the infield and sprayed it with water.

The crew had been there just more than an hour, and the empty lot was already looking like a baseball diamond.

Jose Caban, director of plant operations at the university, said some of his workers used a tractor to prepare the field and laid clay on the infield before students arrived. He said the university also recently donated kitchen equipment to the facility.

"By the second week in February we should be all done with all the grass filled in," he said.

With a grader still on the field, talk of a San Antonio Boys Village versus Saint Leo University baseball game was materializing.

Robert Messer, deputy director at the village, predicted a win for the facility, which is meant to hold 30 beds.

Capodiferro said the moderate-risk facility often operates over capacity, although there currently are about 20 beds filled. Youth up to 18 are sent to the facility off Curley Road "based on their needs, not necessarily criminal history," he said.

"Once a judge decides their level of risk to the community, the Department of Juvenile Justice goes through an assessment and looks through the various programs," Capodiferro said. "Our concentration is on strengthening the family. It has a lot to do with substance abuse and family relations.

"It's mainly kids who go through the Pinellas-Pasco system, but we don't like to take too many from east Pasco. We don't want anybody walking home."

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 948-4217 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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