BOONEVILLE, Miss. - The Northeast Mississippi Community College baseball and softball programs are set to break in their new ballpark with a full afternoon of activities just days before the start of the regular season.
Northeast will hold a special dedication ceremony for its state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar "Field of Dreams" complex on Saturday, February 1.
Gates open to the general public beginning at 11:30 a.m. with the commemoration beginning 30 minutes later at noon. There will be free souvenirs, including t-shirts and hats to mark the occasion, and food while supplies last courtesy of the Northeast Development Foundation.
Those scheduled to represent Northeast during the ceremony, which will take place on the baseball field, include president Ricky Ford, chairman of the board of trustees Jack Ramsey, development foundation executive director Patrick Eaton and athletic director Kent Farris.
Rounding out the list of guest speakers are Cook Coggin Engineers, Inc., president Kent Geno and Dan King, who is the president of McCarty King Construction Company.
"It's a huge day for Northeast in general," said Tigers head softball coach Jody Long. "It gives us an opportunity to show it off to the community. We want to thank the many people that have helped turn this dream into a reality."
Both the baseball and softball teams swing into action at approximately 1 p.m. with practices and intrasquad scrimmages. It is the first chance for fans of the Tigers to check out both squads ahead of their respective season openers.
A packed day of festivities concludes with a first pitch mingle at 2:15 p.m. inside the new indoor hitting and pitching facility that features members of the famed Kessinger family. Headlining that group is former Major League Baseball (MLB) player Keith Kessinger.
The Baltimore Orioles drafted Kessinger, who is the father of current Northeast pitcher Chase Kessinger, in 1989 after an All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) career at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).
Kessinger made his MLB debut with the Cincinnati Reds during the 1993 campaign. His dad, Don Kessinger, was a six-time MLB All-Star, two-time Gold Glove Award winner and two-time National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) with the Chicago Cubs that went on to become head coach at Ole Miss from 1991-96.
He followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a NCAA Division I coach himself. Kessinger instructed Arkansas State University from 2003-08 and prior to that was headman at Carson-Newman (Tenn.) University for two years.
Kessinger most recently shared his passion and knowledge of America's pastime as part of the Ole Miss baseball radio broadcast crew alongside legendary play-by-play man David Kellum.
"It's just something that we're going to try to do every year," Northeast head baseball coach Richy Harrelson said. "We want to get people into the stadium and let them experience everything that we've got going on. We're going to really up our atmosphere around here."
Completion of the "Field of Dreams" project took around 16 months with a cost of over $8 million. Both fields have an artificial turf playing surface with seating capacities of 248 for baseball and 200 at softball.
The "Field of Dreams" also features the first video boards installed on any baseball or softball stadium among the 15 member institutions of the Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges (MACJC).