St. Joseph Catholic School plans sports hub in old stadium

SHAWNEE, Kan. — St. Joseph Catholic School in Shawnee is planning to transform an old football stadium into a hub for Catholic youth sports.

The renovation project aims to address the challenges faced by the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) League in finding suitable practice and play spaces for its teams.

The stadium, originally built in the 1950s for high school sports, has fallen into disrepair over the years.

The planned renovations for the stadium include installing new turf, a video scoreboard, a sound system, fencing and updated lighting.

These upgrades are expected to make the facility a central location for CYO teams to practice and compete.

The Shawnee City Council is set to consider a proposal to replace the existing wooden light poles with taller metal ones, which is a crucial step in the renovation process.

Once completed, the facility will primarily host tackle and flag football games for over 1,800 Catholic youth, including 800 girls participating in flag football. It will also accommodate CYO soccer and lacrosse games.

In addition to serving Catholic youth, the renovated stadium will be available for Special Olympics Kansas athletes, who currently lack a dedicated athletic field.

They plan to use the facility for soccer, flag football, bocce and cornhole.

The field will also be open to Catholic young adults for practice and competition, and there are plans to rent it out to other groups.

The renovation of the old stadium is expected to provide much-needed facilities for Catholic youth sports and Special Olympics Kansas, enhancing opportunities for young athletes in the community.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WDAF. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WDAF staff before being published.