Building fields of dreams

Molloy College and East Rockaway Junior and Senior High School athletes, as well as other interested parties, may soon have the fields of their dreams — or at least a decent place to hold their practices and games. The college and county officials recently reached an agreement to upgrade and improve Bay Park’s neglected and often waterlogged ball fields and tennis courts.

“It will be a shared use,” said Carnell T. Foskey, commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums, who said that the $6 million project is still in the design stage. “Molloy has used county fields before … they use Mitchel Field Athletic Complex now, and the fields [at Bay Park] have been virtually abandoned.”

Molloy will take on half of the cost — $3 million — of renovate the underused facilities in the East Rockaway park, which would include raising the ground, which is often underwater for days after a rainfall.

Edward Thompson, Molloy’s vice president of advancement, said that the college has an ongoing relationship with the county, but it needed a more permanent solution to the lack of space for its sports teams. “We are always looking for opportunities,” Thompson said. “We saw needs in Bay Park, and we had some of our own field issues.” Bay Park is a 15-minute bus ride from Molloy’s campus.

Molloy’s campus has basketball courts, but it uses the Skelos Sports Complex, also in Rockville Centre, for lacrosse games. The college leases about five acres of property belonging to Mercy Hospital, adjacent to the college’s campus, for other sports, and the hope is to use Bay Park for baseball and softball games and tennis matches.

One of the first things on the agenda, according to Thompson, is to add almost two feet of fill across the park’s playing fields. “There is a big flooding problem there, and this renovation will make it usable all the time,” he said. “The residents are going to get professional fields to play on all year round. Others can use the fields as well.”

Foskey’s deputy chief, Bob Dwyer, explained that the fields, like all county-owned fields, are available for a permit fee, and their use is worked out on a schedule. “[Molloy] will also pay a permit fee as well as … for ongoing maintenance,” Dwyer said.