
The Montevallo baseball team has called Kermit A. Johnson Field their home since becoming an intercollegiate athletic program in 1958. The facility has gone through major renovations over the past two seasons. Prior to the start of the 2004 season, a new backstop with netting stretched from dugout to dugout to protect fans has been installed, in addition to a new state-of-the-art scoreboard in right-center field. Changes in the spring of 2005 included the installation of brick walls lining the left and right field lines from the dugouts to the outfield corners, and fencing to enclose the home bullpen area.
The newest addition to the facility is
the construction of a new grandstand
seating area and new press facility
behind home plate. The grandstand
includes 144 permanent chair-back seats
and additional bleacher seating on two
wings for a capacity of approximately
450. The grandstand also includes a
wheelchair access ramp on the first base
side. The large press box contains phone
lines for home and visiting radio as
well as wireless internet access.
The
project received a significant
financial contribution of $ 25,000 from Woodgrain
Millwork Inc., who has a distribution
center
in Montevallo.
Additional individuals and corporations
provided financial support for the
construction of the seating and press
box, completed in April 2007.
Since 1958, the Montevallo Falcons have
called Johnson Field home. Located just
off the main campus in what was
previously a farm and cotton field,
Johnson Field is a picturesque facility,
rising above Shoal Creek, and facing the
scenic UM campus.
This "Home of the Falcons" was the first
facility to see intercollegiate
athletics at UM after the school
admitted male students in 1956. The
Falcons lost their inaugural game, 23-1
to Howard College (now Samford
University), but have since built a
reputation for playing aggressive and
entertaining baseball at home.
The field was named in honor of former
UM President Kermit Johnson, who served
10 years as the school's president, and
was dedicated on April 6, 1981. Johnson
became the 10th president of the
University of Montevallo in 1968, coming
to UM from the Jefferson County Board of
Education, where he had been
superintendent since 1959. Born in Boaz,
Johnson attended Jacksonville State
Teachers College (now Jacksonville State
University). He went from earning $ 75 a
month in his first teaching job, to
becoming one of the most respected names
in Alabama Higher Education.
Previous additions to Johnson Field was
the installation of permanent lights in
1981.A multi-purpose building, built in
1981, and dedicated in honor of former Falcon player Ernest
E. "Billy" Cotton in
1983, was removed in the fall of 2006.
The dimensions of Johnson Field are 325
down the left field line, 350 to left
and right center fields, 380 to center
field, and 330 down the right field
line.