Fulfilling Our Potential
Half of our middle- and high-school students participate in soccer, track and field, and/or cross-country, yet our school has lacked facilities for these sports for at least five years. All our students deserve to have the best and safest practice and game facilities to reach their full potential.
The Need
In 2019, the Ridgway boys soccer team won the Colorado Class 2A state championship. Since then, the field behind our secondary school was unusable, because of problems with irrigation and drainage. Both our boys and girls teams had to travel to the opposite end of town to share a soccer field with a community youth soccer program that has more than 150 kids.
Despite a strong tradition in track and field, there has never been a track in Ouray County, and no publicly available track in five counties, an area larger than Connecticut. High school track and field athletes in Ridgway, Ouray, Silverton, Telluride, Norwood, and the West End, with more than 1,800 students, had to drive between two and three hours to access a track. This situation has been harmful for the athletes’ health. In 2022, the boys track team won the Colorado 2A state championship in two relays. The following year, they didn’t even field a team, because three of the four relay members sustained hamstring tears or stress fractures. Training on concrete paths undoubtedly contributed to these injuries. In addition, there was no safe space to practice long jump, high jump, or hurdle events. Middle school hurdlers and long jumpers trained in a school hallway.
Half of our middle- and high-school students participate in soccer, track and field, and/or cross-country, yet our school has lacked facilities for these sports. All our students deserve to have the best and safest practice and game facilities to reach their full potential.
Our Response
The $4.0M Cimarron Athletic Field project has turned an empty field into a vibrant recreational hub that serves four counties, six school districts, and thousands of young people in an under-resourced part of southwest Colorado. On the site of the defunct grass field behind Ridgway Secondary School, we have built a synthetic turf soccer field and an all-weather eight-lane track, with areas for high jump, long jump, triple jump, discus, shotput, and pole vault. Next to the field, we plan to have a large climbing dome centering a play/fitness area and a community gathering space with shaded benches and tables. The facility is open to the public year-round outside of school hours, practices, and sporting events.
Construction of the Cimarron Athletic Field expands youth access and lowers barriers to sports in multiple communities around the San Juan region, including Ridgway, Ouray, Silverton, Telluride, Norwood, and the West End, with a total population of more than 13,000 people. In many of these towns, soccer and running are the only outdoor sports available to students, but the lack of facilities has discouraged participation.
The Ridgway School District hired FCI Constructors, based in Durango, to serve as general contractor on the project. We broke ground in March 2025 and completed construction by late August. In September, we had our first home soccer game in six years and hosted a track meet for area middle schools, the first such event in the history of Ouray, San Miguel, and San Juan counties.
