“This is a day we have been waiting for at Badin High School for nearly 60 years – the opportunity to have our own stadium,” said Badin President Brian Pendergest. “Our donors have been generous, and we are blessed to be moving forward with this tremendous project.”
Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller was among the speakers at the event and echoed Pendergest, saying: “This is really historic” to a crowd of more than 100 school supporters huddled in the rain weather under large tents behind the school.
Moeller said the coming sports complex reflects the family generations of alumni, current school families, Badin supporters and the city’s pride in the school, which opened in 1966.
“This sportsplex is about family. Badin pride. Badin tradition. Badin spirit and Badin unity. And the city of Hamilton thinks so much about Badin that this is also about city pride.”
The ceremony officially marked the construction phase start of the two-part, $15 million project, which by fall 2025 will see the completion of the Lanni Family Stadium at Matandy SportsPlex behind the private school’s New London Road campus.
The 2,600-seat stadium facility will include a synthetic turf playing field, running track, home and visitors’ stands, an athletic complex and adjacent practice field for Badin’s boys and girls’ sports teams and all students’ physical education classes.
Named after major school donors, the sportsplex project private fundraising campaign is on-going with school officials recently announcing they had reached the $11 million mark.
Badin enrolls more than 700 students from throughout Butler County and other communities in the region.
Over the decades, Badin’s lack of a campus playing field, sports stadium or track forced the school to cobble together agreements with neighboring public school districts such as Hamilton, Fairfield, Monroe, Edgewood and others to rent playing fields for practices and games for its boys’ and girls’ athletic teams.
But in 2022 Badin officials proposed and won approval from the city of Hamilton allowing them to purchase and re-zone the land for the 346-space parking lot, which opened in January and was a zoning prerequisite for the coming sports facility.
In southwest Ohio, Moeller High School in northern Hamilton County is the only other Cincinnati Archdiocese high school without an on-campus sports stadium.
“We’ve always been traveling, even to our home games,” Pendergest noted in a released statement.
“Scheduling has gotten more difficult over the years. The opportunity for our teams to walk up the hill (behind the school) and play games on our own field will inaugurate a new era of excellence for our student-athletes.”
“We’re always looking for ways to improve the product that we’re offering to students and their families,” Pendergest said. “This, obviously, is a game-changer for us.”
“There are obviously a lot of details involved, but the project has gone smoothly,” Pendergest said. “There is a lot still to be done, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel – and that light is a bright future of home events for Badin High School teams.”