“
It’s a first class organization. I’m very
pleased with far far we’ve gone in a short period
of time,” he added.
The same can be said about the football boost-
ers in Washington. Known as the 12th Man, it
is a supplement to the Washington High School
Booster Club, focusing on football because of
the extra expense of fielding a gridiron team,
said club president Ken Hopp.
The 12th Man has existed longer, since 1983,
but it’s been in recent years that its efforts have
shown in a first class way.
Three years ago, the club did some unique
fund raising and built what is known as the
PantherPlex. Not to many high schools, in Il-
linois at least, can boast of having a skybox for
its football and baseball games, but PantherPlex
has one. It can be rented for home games and is
a source of extra income for the program.
But the most important part of PantherPlex
is what it does for the team in meeting its needs,
Hopp said. That includes college-class locker
rooms and trainer facilities, a teammeeting room
equipped to show and analyze game film and a
place to serve pre-game meals. Offices for coaches
and a conference room also are in the building.
On the ground floor is a concession stand and
public restrooms. And because it now provides
a new locker room for the home team, visiting
teams can use the storage
building across the field where the home locker
room used to be instead of having to leg it back
to the high school building at halftime.
So how did it come about? Hopp said a
Washington High School alumni group started
talking with head coach Darrell Crouch about
building an elevated platform for people to
watch the game from one of the end zones. But
Crouch implored the group to go further and
erect a building for locker rooms and such.
“
That’s when we really got involved with the
alumni group and things just snowballed from
there. It was quite an undertaking, but we got it
done,” said Hopp, a former Panther himself.
The bulk of the cost was paid by selling blocks
that form the exterior walls of the PantherPlex’s
ground floor as well as a retaining wall sur-
rounding it. Painted the school colors of orange
and black, buyers of the blocks can have their
names or team logos or just about anything
engraved on the surface.
TO HELP PAY FOR THE WASHINGTON PANTHERPLEX, THE BOOSTER
CLUB SOLD PERSONALIZED BLOCKS THAT WERE THEN USED TO FORM
THE BASE OF THE COMPLEX AND ITS RETAINING WALL.
THE PRESENT
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