A college softball tournament is coming to Celina this month.

The 2023 Tracy Beard College Classic is scheduled to take place at Old Celina Park from Feb. 17-19.

The tournament features softball teams from the University of North Texas, the University of Kentucky, McNeese State, Sam Houston State University, the University of Texas at Arlington and South Dakota State University.

Celina Mayor Sean Terry said the event marks the first NCAA Division I softball tournament to be hosted at Old Celina Park.

“When we built those fields out there, those astroturf fields, we knew it would get a lot of attention because they can be played on all the time,” Terry said. “And I think not only does it bring recognition to our outstanding softball fields (...) but also it helps our restaurants and local businesses. People come here, they’re going to have to shop and eat and everything else, so we’re really excited to showcase what we have at Old Celina Park.”

The event comes after Celina Field No. 4 was named “Softball Field of the Year” by the Texas Turfgrass Association in 2022.

Terry said the event also brings an opportunity for local athletes to get a front row seat to the next level of athletics.

“Just bringing these caliber Division I schools here to showcase not only our city but also some of our kids that can really interact with those kind of athletes and see, ‘Hey, man, I can make that next step, too,’” Terry said.

Terry applauded the city’s Parks and Recreation department, including Director Cody Webb and Assistant Director Jeff Davis.

“Cody does a great job with organizing that kind of stuff and really rolling out the red carpet when they come into town and making sure that every need’s met, whether it’s help with scheduling, whether it’s helping with the local restaurants, catering meals, whatever it is, and I think it’s just we’re in the spotlight, and I give a lot of credit to our Parks and Rec department,” Terry said.

Have the latest local news delivered to your inbox so you don't miss out on updates.

Get the latest Celina sports delivered to your inbox every week.

Get breaking news delivered to your inbox from around Star Local Media when it happens.

Have the latest local pro sports news delivered every morning so you don't miss out on updates.

The first time I turned onto the brand new portion of the Dallas North Tollway extension in Celina, most of it was swathed in darkness.

I had never ventured onto the new concrete ribbon of the new service roads that stretched northward beyond FM 428, but the evening of Sunday, Dec. 4, it felt like the right time. The northbound route cut through the stretches of land that I had not previously been able to observe up close, and nearby lights marking different spots in the city of Celina glittered to my right.

My immediate thought was that this roadway opening, just a couple of months old, was a prelude to something much bigger for Celina.

Out of context, it seems like an odd thought to have at 9 p.m. on a Sunday. But within the context of North Texas’s growth and Celina’s explosion of development, the thought felt like a natural one.

The significance of this roadway, which opened to the public in October, wasn’t lost on the crowd that had gathered the very next afternoon in a bright red barn nestled in Pilot Point. That crowd, which included representatives from Celina, Denton County, the North Texas Tollway Authority and Pilot Point, was there to officially cut the ribbon on a regional initiative to bring more mobility to this sector of North Texas. More specifically, they were there to cut the ribbon on the 7.7-mile segment of new roadway that stretches from FM 428 to the Grayson County line.

The project, which was almost 12 years in the making and which began construction in September 2020, is expected to serve the region as the county approaches a population of 1 million in the next few years, according to Denton County.

A press release authored by the county takes care to note that the extension is expected to bring “significant economic development and job opportunities” to the area, adding that an estimated $5 billion in economic development came along the Dallas North Tollway in Frisco.

“It’s fantastic to see the completion of this,” said John Mahalik of the NTTA, during the ceremony on Monday. “It’s almost like a gateway, if you will.”

He added that the project represents more than a means of travel — that it also represents a regional partnership.

“This eight-mile frontage road is just the beginning of bringing access to property development as our county grows, triggering construction on the planned additional lanes of the North Texas Tollway as you all have seen,” Mahalik said.

Celina representatives were among those present at Monday’s ceremony.

“We saw what Frisco went through when they were trying to get their two lanes done, and they were working on Preston Road. So we really pushed the toll road authority to get it done a little bit faster, to get that mobility done,” Terry told the Celina Record.

Terry added that the move will also provide better mobility for first responders in the area.

“Having this now to be able to cut through to get to the hospital quicker will literally save lives,” Terry said. “It literally will be able to cut down the time it takes for them to transport somebody from this part of the area to the hospital.”

Ultimate buildout of the project will include two northbound lanes and two southbound free frontage roads with six tolled main lanes, according to Denton County. For now, the roadway comprises a two-lane stretch with one northbound and one southbound lane.

“We realize that this road is not only going to improve air quality and help economic development, but it really is...I believe improved roadways are a family value,” Denton County Judge Andy Eads said at the Monday ceremony. “And they are a family value because people can have a reliable travel time to and from their workplace and their home, to other civic activities, and so I really believe that roadways like this one really do promote the overall quality of life that we value as a commissioners court, as residents here in Denton County.”

Celina Record Local Headlines

Have the latest local news delivered to your inbox so you don't miss out on updates.

Celina Record e-Edition

Receive our newspaper electronically with the e-Edition email.

Alica Parsons has become accustomed to being recognized as “Dane’s mom.”

It is not abnormal to visit a restaurant or the mall and for people she’s never met to recognize her son.

“They’ll say, ‘My little brother was in class with you,’ or, ‘You drew a picture for my niece and it hangs on our wall,’ all kinds of stuff like that,” she said. “It happens everywhere.”

Dane Parsons, a Celina resident and Celina High School graduate, is known for his art and it has since become a profession through his business, LKD (Lucky Kid Dane) Studios, which produces digital art and animation.

Alica, his mother, is not shocked at all that his penchant for art and animation has become a profession.

“Dane has said since he was 7 years old that this is what he wanted to do, and when Dane puts his mind to something, it happens, usually,” she said. “So I’ve learned to not be surprised by anything, and I’m super proud of him.”

When he was a toddler, Dane became ill and lost language and social skills overnight, Alica said. He was diagnosed at age 4 with autism. At the time, he didn’t speak words and communicated by pointing, she said. Through therapy, Dane began drawing as a way to communicate, a tool that flourished into an artform.

“I always know when Dane understands my lesson when he draws the lesson out,” Alica recalled one of Dane’s teachers saying.

It caught on, and other students started drawing lessons out, too, she said.

“One day I show up to the junior high and the walls are just littered with pictures of the lessons because Dane, that’s how Dane learned and everybody else thought it was so fun. So the kids started to draw these lessons, and the lessons came to life,” she said. “Well then I went down, it was the science hallway, and then in the history hallway, the same thing down the history hallway. So I thought, ‘Okay, alright, this clearly has nothing to do with me.’ As a mom, you feel like you can guide it, but Dane, he’s just got this thing about him that draws people to the way that he communicates.”

LKD Studios

619 followers

6mo

Check out the team’s latest work for Achieving Milestones Pediatric Therapy. Who do you know who could use this kind of #animation? Tag them or send it to them and let’s see what else we can do to help people communicate a fun visual experience.

Like Comment

To view or add a comment, sign in

Eventually, his penchant for drawing expanded into an interest in creating animated videos. He began submitting videos to competition, advancing to the second round one year and to the semifinals the next year.

In February 2022, Dane’s video, “Mace: The Animated Short” won the state title in the Division 1 Digital Animation category at the UIL Young Filmmakers State Festival. The video follows the story of a young boy who makes a difference by bringing color to the world around him.

“God used what started as a coping mechanism for a devastating loss to become the beginning of a dream,” Alica wrote in a post at the time. “This is his third year to enter after two years of making it to the second round of finals. We could not be more thankful for this journey. Dane’s disability has paved a way for all of us to become better people. The boy who couldn’t speak just won for a film that he narrated in his own voice. Miracles are real.”

Since graduating from Celina High School in 2022, Dane is nowhere near stopping his trajectory. Through his Celina-based studio, he has worked to create animated shorts for local businesses including an electrical company, a doctor and Achieving Milestones Pediatric Therapy.

“Basically, his life came full circle,” Alica said. “He went to therapy as a kid to learn how to talk in occupational therapy, and then here he is as an adult doing videos to help kids who have to go to occupational therapy.”

She said Dane is also learning 3-D animation techniques.

“I anticipate he’ll have some kind of maybe Pixar-style, 3-D animation that will be coming out within the next year,” she said.

Alica said a local student has produced a documentary about Dane’s life, which has been submitted to the UIL competition. In the documentary, Alica said, Dane talks about why he chose this path in his life and how it has impacted him.

“And one of the things he says in it is, ‘Art is the real communication,’ and I thought that was so insightful,” Alica said. “I’ve never heard him say it before, and then he said it on the video, he said it’s just…for people like him who don’t have a way to verbally maybe say what they want to say all the time, he can get it out through art, and I just thought that was so cool, because that could be true for anybody.”

See Dane’s work at youtube.com/c/LuckyKidDaneStudiosDaneParsons or at linkedin.com/company/lkd-studios/

Celina Record Local Headlines

Have the latest local news delivered to your inbox so you don't miss out on updates.

Celina Record e-Edition

Receive our newspaper electronically with the e-Edition email.

Get the latest Celina sports delivered to your inbox every week.

Get breaking news delivered to your inbox from around Star Local Media when it happens.

Have the latest local pro sports news delivered every morning so you don't miss out on updates.

Listen to this article now

Powered byTrinity Audio

--:--

--:--

Christopher and Luz Estrada were sick of the mixed messages.

As their son Javier entered his freshman year of high school, his coaches and the UIL encouraged him to keep playing multiple sports. He knew he wanted to continue both varsity soccer and basketball at Floresville High School — a 4A school 30 miles southeast of San Antonio.

But despite what his coaches and school administrators said, it didn’t take long for Javier to learn his goals were unrealistic.

The staff at Floresville told Javier he could play both. But without being in two places at one time, he would have to miss some practices or games, which the coaches said would undoubtedly impact his chances of becoming a starter.

Related:Boys soccer rankings (3/8): District 9-5A title crowned; Ennis’ big move

“He was kind of in a bind,” his mother, Luz, said. “He didn’t want to let his teammates down. Why would he remain in a spot on varsity where he wasn’t going to be most of the time? It just wasn’t fair.”

Javier, now a sophomore, had to make the tough decision to quit basketball — a sport he had played since he was 5 — to continue his varsity soccer career.

The Estradas learned other students at Floresville felt similarly, so they started a petition which received 402 signatures and presented a proposal to the UIL to move the high school soccer season to the fall. They wanted the season to correspond with football or for the start dates to be adjusted slightly so that their son and other students like him could reap the benefits of playing multiple sports.

“Why is it that soccer is running at the same time as baseball, basketball, powerlifting, tennis and golf?” Luz said. “At the beginning of the year, it’s just football and cross country for the boys, and for the girls, it’s just volleyball and cross country.”

The UIL discussed the proposal during its June Legislative Council meeting and ultimately decided to take no action, but the Estrada family plans to continue to fight.

Some have backed the Estradas, citing weather and the corresponding college season as justification for a change. Others have ignored it, arguing it’ll never pass.

“Obviously, it’s all smoke,” Grapevine girls soccer coach Steve McBride said. “There’s 100 things to get put in front of the UIL every year.”

Whether the change happens, athletes are still forced to choose. In either schedule, high school soccer — and boys soccer, in particular — is left to battle more highly prioritized activities such as club, basketball or football.

With basketball season coming to an end as teams claimed state titles in San Antonio last weekend, those like Javier who did choose soccer had to watch from a distance and wonder what could have been. Meanwhile coaches, athletic coordinators and the UIL are left to reconsider the debate of sports specialization and where the priorities should lie.

“If you play multiple sports, you’ll have multiple opportunities,” Luz said. “A lot of people are in the same boat as we are.”

A logistical nightmare

Texas is one of seven states to start its public high school soccer season in the winter. It is one of 13 to play any portion of the season in the winter at all.

Most states, especially those on the East Coast and in colder climates, begin soccer in August and end in November. Others play from March to May. No other state besides Texas started this year’s season in December.

For most opposed to the schedule, weather jumps out as the immediate concern. Year after year, teams face cancellations and scheduling nightmares when ice storms hit, especially in North Texas.

During this year’s late-January ice storm, some teams were forced to play three games in a four- or five-day span just to catch up.

But coaches in favor of a winter start date fear moving the season could cause an even bigger scheduling challenge with both soccer and football playing Friday nights.

“When you start messing with the football season, especially here in Texas, football’s king,” Celina girls soccer coach Alexander Adams said. “The reality is that between sharing the fields, the girls being right in the middle of their club seasons and during football season, I just don’t think it would work out.”

High school coaches, especially of boys teams, already have to convince some of their players to play high school in addition to the massive commitment of club soccer. If the two seasons were to correspond, coaches fear they’d lose many of their stars.

Even though the proposal was created to accommodate multisport athletes, coaches argue it would undoubtedly hurt some as well.

“Especially with your smaller schools, I think it would almost serve as an injustice because of how many of your smaller-school athletes play multiple sports,” Lewisville boys soccer head coach Brandon McCallum said. “That’s the UIL’s biggest thing. They want kids to be able to participate in as many things as they can. I can’t see them changing something that would limit participation in sports.”

‘Left on the backburner’

McKinney Boyd senior captain Caleb Sempebwa didn’t discover football until his sophomore year. He started playing soccer when he was 3, but he added football as a secondary sport in high school.

That impulsive decision turned out to be his ticket to college.

Sempebwa will continue his career as a kicker at TCU next fall after having the opportunity to play both sports throughout his time at Boyd.

He said moving the soccer season would have been detrimental to his success.

“If you want to be good in school, you’re taking AP classes, you’re taking dual credit classes that have two-to-three hours of homework at night,” Sempebwa said. “I also have family duties, too. I don’t know how I would be able to handle two sports, plus advanced classes and things at home as well.”

Like Estrada, Sempebwa may have had to choose, leaving Boyd’s soccer team without one of its captains or its football team without its star kicker.

“In my mind, it would be detrimental from a physical health standpoint, from a mental health standpoint, from a lot of areas,” Boyd soccer coach Colby Peek said.

While North Texas coaches are overwhelmingly opposed to the change, some have played devil’s advocate and said a fall soccer season could offer some perks. Beyond better weather, starting in August would allow the season to correspond with the college soccer season, making it less likely for top players to forgo their senior years and enroll early.

“I had a player who graduated in December,” Allen girls soccer coach Kelly Thompson said. “She graduated early to go play Division I, so she couldn’t play her high school season, which is common for top-tier girls.”

The threat of changing the season made the wheels start to turn for many of the area’s coaches. Some suggested shortening the soccer season. Others, such as Southlake Carroll girls soccer coach Matt Colvin, proposed splitting the season into two — with two months played in the fall and two months played in the spring.

Related:Southlake Carroll is building a dynasty and no one seems to know how to stop it

For now the possibilities can stay in theory, as the Estradas’ proposal is at a standstill.

“We haven’t heard anything,” Luz said. “We received nothing.”

The UIL declined requests for comment on the possibility of moving the soccer season, saying the proposition did not come from an internal member.

In a few years, the Estradas’ now 10-year-old son will be in high school and will face the same predicament as Javier. Until that time comes, Luz and her husband are determined to keep fighting for that opportunity for their children.

Whether it’s their own kids being impacted or athletes across the state, the Estradas are left with the fear that — in a state where football and basketball will always take precedence — their beloved sport is being forgotten.

“Soccer is just left on the backburner, and I feel that soccer is such a growing sport, especially amongst high school kids,” Luz said. “I don’t think it’s given the right amount of attention.”

On Twitter: @Lassimak

Related Stories

View More

Find more high school sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Sign up for our FREE HS newsletter

Celina residents will have a chance to vote for or against legalizing the sale of alcoholic beverages including mixed beverages throughout the city this November.

On Tuesday, City Secretary Lauren Field told the Celina City Council that a citizen petition submitted on July 8 garnered enough signatures to call an election for the item. The council called the election during its regular meeting on Tuesday.

According to city documentation, the election is scheduled for Nov. 8. Early voting is scheduled for Oct. 24 through Nov. 4. Voting locations are slated to be established by the Collin County Elections Administrator and the state of Texas.

Back in 2010, a Celina election passed allowing for beer and wine sales on and off premises and allowing for mixed beverage sales at restaurants. However, the allowances applied only to the city limits as they stood in 2010 when the election took place. Since then, Celina has annexed a considerable amount of land.

The election item brought to voters in November allows for all alcoholic beverage sales including mixed beverages in city limits as of November 2022. Dustin McAfee, executive director of development services with the city, said this would in effect also allow for liquor stores in the city limits.

Since the petition had garnered enough signatures to trigger a vote, the Celina City Council called the November election.

In anticipation of the election, McAfee said the council had directed city staff to prepare an ordinance that would require a specific use permit for bars in the city. According to a presentation given Tuesday, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission regulations don’t allow specific use permits to be required for liquor stores without being required for similar retail-type businesses. The proposed ordinance would define bars in the city’s zoning ordinance (any establishment that gets at least 75% of its gross revenue from on-premise consumption sales) and would establish the SUP requirement.

In addition, the ordinance would set maximum separation distances of bars from certain protected establishments (such as schools, hospitals, churches and daycares). According to the Tuesday presentation, Celina already restricts liquor stores to the maximum separation distances allowed by state law. The proposed ordinance would add bars to the separation distances as well.

According to the presentation, variance processes do exist that allow cities to waive the distance on a case-by-case basis.

McAfee said the ordinance is slated to go before the Celina Planning and Zoning Commission in September and before the Celina City Council in October.

McAfee said Wednesday that the city’s planning staff were already being contacted by various property owners who want to try to have their properties annexed before the November deadline so they can ensure alcohol privileges on their investment properties.

Have the latest local news delivered to your inbox so you don't miss out on updates.

Get the latest Celina sports delivered to your inbox every week.

Get breaking news delivered to your inbox from around Star Local Media when it happens.

Have the latest local pro sports news delivered every morning so you don't miss out on updates.