CARLSBAD — After 12 years of teaching physical education classes in portable classrooms, a new state-of-the-art athletics facility will open this fall at La Costa Canyon High School.
Edwin Mendoza, a communications coordinator for San Dieguito Union High School District, said the Maverick Athletic Center, or The MAC, will include PE classrooms, a turf field, an outdoor basketball court and a “cutting-edge” weight room. (Watch the video rendering of the new facility here.)
The MAC is part of the $449 million Proposition AA bond initiative to upgrade the school district’s classrooms and facilities.
“This is going to be one of the premier workout facilities in San Diego County,” said Principal Justin Conn. “It is a state-of-the-art facility and will be everything we need.”
Mendoza said the district gathered input from PE teachers and coaches when creating the new center.
“This top facility will open a lot of opportunities for LCC athletes,” Mendoza said in an email.
Since 2012, the district has completed 67 projects across 11 schools using funds from Prop AA, according to the SDUHSD website. Eight projects in progress will be completed by the end of the year.
John Digiulio, an LCC strength and conditioning coach for 25 years, said he is a member of a committee of parents, staff, administrators and LCC board members who helped develop the complex’s design.
Digiulio said PE classes moved into portable classrooms, which were supposed to be temporary, about 14 years ago to make room in LCC’s gym for expanding the dance studios. Mendoza said multiple variables go into prioritizing Prop AA projects, and the LCC fitness complex is part of that list.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Digiulio said of The MAC. “I mean, I work with athletes all year and so it’s been something that I think is really needed and it’s going to be beneficial for our students and athletes.”
Digiulio said LCC’s current athletic facility and available equipment have limited coaches’ ability to train athletes, and the new center will better prepare athletes for their respective sports.
The complex will also give coaches more flexibility to train injured athletes working to return to play simultaneously with regular athletes.
“It will rival anything that exists in San Diego County from images that I’ve seen from people who have sent me and worked on projects like this in North County, Orange County,” Digiulio said. “It’s going to be, I’d say, one of the top facilities in the county.”
Beth Crowder, the director of the LCC Foundation — an independent nonprofit whose board comprises parent volunteers — said the group started a fundraiser with a goal of $400,000 to help stock the new complex with exercise equipment. According to Crowder, the nonprofit is a quarter way to its goal.
“We’ve had so many amazing additions in the last few years,” Crowder said. “Our principal is phenomenal, and our culture is just phenomenal right now, and we just want to keep leveling up, and that’s what The MAC is going to offer.”
