School Board Receives Proposal to Name EC Football Stadium After Coach Rod Ballart

Coach Ballart built the program from the ground up.

Photo by Travis Thayer, Eagle Country 99.3.

(St. Leon, Ind.) - A proposal has been presented to the Sunman-Dearborn School Board to name the East Central High School football stadium after Coach Rod Ballart. 

Rod's son, Rand, who is currently the varsity football head coach at South Dearborn High School, went before the school board last week to pitch the idea, stating "this is something that is very dear to my heart, and something that is long overdue." 

Rod Ballart spent 22 years coaching football at East Central High School, where he accumulated a record of 172-73-1 including eight EIAC championships, nine sectional titles, five semi-state appearances, and two state championship appearances. In 1994, Ballart led the Trojans to their first state championship, defeating DeKalb 35-0. 

While the East Central and Indiana Football Hall of Famer's record is impressive, it is the work that he did to get the program up and running that his son highlighted last week. 

When East Central High School was formed through the consolidation of Sunman and North Dearborn, the athletic program had very little. There was no football field, no locker rooms and no weight room. Student-athletes had to travel every day to North Dearborn to practice and play, which created challenges and even safety concerns. 

When Coach Ballart asked the school board back in the 70s about moving football to East Central, he was told, "if you want to practice here, you will have to find a way. We do not have the money" 

Coach Ballart certainly found a way. He bush hogged and mowed the land with his own equipment, painted lines on the practice field, converted unused storage areas into locker rooms, and built the school's first weight room with donated wood and weights that players brought from home. 

Additionally, he helped build the true football stadium at East Central High School, started freshman football, and created East Central's pee wee program. 

"That legacy speaks for itself," said Rand Ballart. "Naming the stadium after him recognizes something greater. The foundation he built, the tradition he started and the pride that generations of East Central athletes still carry today." 

Ballart continued by saying his dad's greatest accomplishment wasn't the field he built, but the culture he created at East Central.

"He taught young men and women that pride isn't something you're given, it is something you earn through hard work, sacrifice and commitment to something bigger than yourself. That pride still lives here today. One day, I hope he gets to see "Welcome to Rod Ballart Stadium, home of the East Central Trojans and Trojan Field. He's earned the right to see that happen while he still can." 

The Sunman-Dearborn School Board is taking the proposal under advisement.