By Kyle Coppola
Mount Dora High School Renovating Football Locker Rooms
Mount Dora High School is renovating the school’s locker rooms. The renovation was much needed. Many of these lockers were decades old and as the sport has changed, the need for improved lockers has been needed for a long time.
We got the chance to talk to head coach Luke Hutchinson who said “It’s a compolete renocation that started during the season. On the exterior, it’s a brand new roof, air conditioning, paint, drainage.” said Hutchinson.
“On the interior everything was completely stripped down to the bones of the structure, vents, celings, flooring, paint and bathrooms. Pretty much everything you can imagine. We still have a lot of work to do and hopefully updating the lockers as well. Once all of the basic paint goes on we are going to bring in the painter that did the weight room and wall down at the field to add some nice asthetics to it.” said coach Hutchinson.
Mount Dora is coming off a 7-3 season that nearly saw the Hurricanes make the FHSAA playoffs. This also marked the first time since 2016 and 2017 that the Hurricanes finished with back to back winning seasons.
(Recent renovations included a new natural grass playing surface that now drains properly.)
The Canes have been working hard in order to make improvements to the aging football stadium and facilities over the years. A stadium improvement project plan continues to garner support so that the football stadium and track can be renovated. The school continues to raise the funds needed for that project.
(The school hopes to renovate the stadium portion of the football field. The aging press box and grandstands are in need of a renovation. The school is asking for donations which you can help with in this link: https://www.mdhsstadium.com/about)
(This is ultimately what Mount Dora High hopes the stadium improvement plan will play out. A new press box, track and other upgrades.)
In the meantime smaller projects have taken center stage. Projects such as the renovated weight room at Mount Dora High, new wall down at the football field and now the renovated locker rooms will go a long way. These kids deserve it as well, considering the way Mount Dora has played the past few years it will be great to see them earn a bit of pride, walking into a locker room they can be proud of.
(The renovations to the locker rooms are a step in the right direction. We look forward to seeing the finished product later this year.)
Having played Football I know the amount of time and comraderie that goes on in a locker room. You spend a lot of time there and it becomes your home away from home in a way. We are excited to see how it all comes out!
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
