RIGBY—Spirits were high as the large scissor blades cut the ribbon outside the front entrance of the new 60,000-square-foot Broulim’s Fieldhouse.
After a failed $80 million bond for the Jefferson County School District in 2022, Rigby locals, Dick and Vonnie Lue Broulim, the owners of the Broulim’s grocery store chain, funded the $7 million project.
Both Dick and Vonnie Lue spoke at the celebration.
“It has always been the dream of ours since we were students at RHS, to build this fieldhouse,” Vonnie Lue said.
“Thank you as a community, thank you as a people, thank you as faculty; thanks to everybody who made this possible, we are so blessed,” Dick said.
Upon entering, student athletes filled the playing areas, practicing showing the different areas in action.
The building features full year-round access for student athletes in football, baseball, softball, soccer, tennis, pickle ball and track and field.
Rigby track and field Head Coach Monica Seward spoke at the event and mentioned the need to shovel snow from the track in spring, during the early weeks of the season.
“I had 194 kids on the track team last season and so having that large amount of students to be able to use this facility and use it to its fullest potential will be a game changer for our team and our program,” Seward said.
The facility has three regulation-length indoor track lanes, with five dedicated sprinter lanes, long jump, high jump and pole vault areas, and cages for shot put and discus throwing.
In the middle of the track, there are three tennis courts surrounded by netting.
Beside those courts are two batting cages.
At the far end of the building, there is a large turf area for football, baseball, softball and soccer.
“In the spring we can’t even get out and practice or even play contest a lot of times till April, so we have to go to the Boise Valley, and they have a huge advantage over us, because of that factor,” said Rigby Athletic Director Ty Shippen.
The building will be heavily used during the winter months, but it also can be used when air quality drops.
“We’re thinking even this fall with lots of fires, its fire season, football can come in, soccer can come in and practice versus being shut down and going into the gym because you can’t get much accomplished in the gym like you can on a full turf,” Shippen said.
Many indoor mixed-use facilities have the track around the turf. Often runners are cautious about balls thrown, or poles from vault stations hitting the track. This building is different.
“It doesn’t go around the turf; the turf is its own separate thing. We wanted to keep that separate,” Shippen said.
In the turf section, there’s a home plate in the corner for baseball, a home plate in the center for softball and different lines for different uses.
“The gray lines are our baseball, black lines are our softball, and then our yellow lines are soccer, and we do have our penalty kick as well out in the middle of the field,” Shippen said.
The white lines are for football, and the length of the field is shy of 50 yards. The width is a few feet short of a regulation football field. The field has marks along the sides.
These are placed exactly where the numbers are on the football field.
There’s a permanent net that goes between the track and the field, but partition nets can be dropped to separate practice areas on the turf.
“Every spring team could be practicing at the same time,” Shippen said.
The new fieldhouse is tailored directly to the needs of the coaches and student athletes at Rigby High School.
“We brought in all of our coaches to get feedback and so that was a huge part too,” Shippen said. “That helped us as a team figure out how this is going to come together.”
The building is also open to the community. It’s not designed for commercial use, but pickleball courts can be reserved online. The facility is open from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. for community reservations.
To listen to the full interview and walk through, check out our podcast feed.