Gilmer High School: Building More Room to Train, Practice and Play
At Gilmer High School, athletic space has to work hard. In Ellijay, Georgia, the North Georgia landscape makes level ground valuable. When the school looked at its existing natural-grass baseball field, the opportunity was bigger than a renovation. It was a chance to make better use of the space already on campus and create more flexibility for student-athletes.
Advanced Sports Group partnered with Gilmer High School to turn that opportunity into a shared synthetic-turf baseball and softball field. Completed in 2024, the project brought two programs together on a durable surface designed for consistent use. It also allowed the school to reserve other areas of campus for additional athletic needs.
Now, two years later, the field is still doing what it was built to do. Current photos and video show a space that continues to look ready for activity. That matters because the value of a field project is not only found on opening day. It is found in the practices that stay on schedule, the games that have a reliable home, and the day-to-day work of giving athletes a quality place to compete.
A shared field built around campus reality
Gilmer High School’s original natural-grass baseball field held potential, but it also occupied some of the campus’s most useful flat land. The school wanted a solution that would serve both baseball and softball while making the overall athletic footprint work harder.
The result was a combined field configuration that created a shared home for two programs. Synthetic turf was an important part of that decision. A high-use baseball and softball surface needs to handle repeated practices, games, and the busy rhythm of a school athletic calendar. The goal was a more durable playing environment with less weather-related disruption and a more manageable maintenance routine.
Good sports construction begins with listening to how a space needs to function. At Gilmer, that meant building a field around the school’s real constraints and real priorities. The finished project was not simply a new playing surface. It was a practical use of the space Gilmer High School had available.
The real test comes after the ribbon cutting
Every finished field looks new on day one. The stronger measure is how it serves athletes, coaches, and school staff after seasons of use.
The new exterior visual offers that perspective at Gilmer High School. It shows the shared field two years into its life, after it has had time to become part of the regular athletic routine. The surface, layout, and overall presentation still make a clear statement about the long-term value of building quality from the start.
For a school, that long-term view is important. Athletic facilities support more than a single team or a single schedule. They support practices before school, afternoon training, games, camps, and the everyday preparation that happens well before a crowd arrives. A durable field helps create more confidence in the calendar and more consistency for the people who use it.
The Gilmer project is a reminder that a field is an operating asset. It should be designed and built with the next season in mind, but also with the many seasons that follow.
Returning to build the indoor facility
A successful project often opens the door to the next need. At Gilmer High School, the outdoor field partnership continued when the school asked Advanced Sports Group to turf its new indoor training facility.
The indoor facility gives the athletic program another usable environment for skill work, conditioning, team sessions, and training that does not depend on the weather or the availability of the outdoor field. It creates more options for coaches and athletes throughout the year while helping the outdoor facility remain available for the activities it was designed to host.
For ASG, returning to a campus is meaningful. It shows that the first project did more than meet a construction need. It built trust. The same field builders who helped Gilmer make better use of its outdoor athletic space were invited back to help create a new place for athletes to keep working inside.
That continuity matters to a project team. It means understanding the campus, the goals behind the original work, and the importance of getting the details right in the next phase. It also creates a more connected athletic environment, where outdoor competition space and indoor training space support one another.
Building value across the athletic campus
The Gilmer High School story is about more than turf. It is about building value through spaces that serve a clear purpose.
The shared baseball and softball field made a limited piece of flat ground more useful. The new indoor facility expands when and where athletes can train. Together, they give Gilmer High School more ways to support its programs without losing sight of the practical realities of the campus.
That is the kind of work Advanced Sports Group is proud to do across Georgia and the Southeast. We are field builders, but the work is always about more than a surface. It is about listening closely, building for the way a space will be used, and delivering facilities that keep working long after the project is complete.
At Gilmer High School, the next chapter was built on the first. The outdoor field continues to serve the Bobcats, and the finished indoor facility is ready to support the work that happens between game days. That is building quality. That is building value.