Metro Sports Report

3 projects worth $49 million on the way

The next two years are scheduled to bring a phenomenal spurt of new sports facilities to the Metro area with massive projects planned at Coe College, Mount Mercy University and Prospect Meadows Ball Fields.

Coe has earmarked $20 million for its "Make Your Move" campaign to build a new performance arena on campus, along with a fitness center, new wrestling room and a bridge across College Drive to connect the new facilities to the Clark Racquet Center.

Mount Mercy plans to spend $15 million on its "Home Field Advantage" project to build a new stadium for soccer and track, a new baseball field and a new softball field on land next to campus.

Prospect Meadows has a price-tag of $14 million for a 17-field complex of eight regulation baseball fields, eight softball fields and one Miracle Field on land at the junction of Highway 13 and County Home Road just north of Marion.

All three projects are scheduled to break ground this year. Coe and Mount Mercy plan to get started this spring, while Prospect Meadows hopes to get started sometime in 2016 if the next phase of its fundraising falls into place.

Arm injury steered Christensen to coaching

Austin Christensen had every reason to think he'd enjoy a successful college baseball career at the University of Nebraska following his glittering high school days at Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

He helped Kennedy win the Class 4A state title in 2010 and broke numerous school records as a hitter and left-handed pitcher, most notably with 42 home runs and28 victories on the mound, and was named the Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year in 2011 after batting .555.

He got off to a fast start at Nebraska as a freshman in the fall of 2011 as one of the team's top hitters, but then came the arm problems that eventually led to Tommy John surgery and robbed him of two full years with the Cornhuskers.

Christensen experienced some mild success at Nebraska in 2014 and 2015 as a hitter and pitcher, but he never regained all of his skills and realized he probably never would.

Morrissey found a good friend in Warner

Mike Morrissey enjoyed calling the plays and serving as the offensive coordinator when he was the head football coach at Cedar Rapids Prairie, but he willingly relinquished those duties to an eminently qualified gentleman at his new job in Arizona.

Morrissey gave the offensive keys at Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale to Kurt Warner, the former NFL great from Cedar Rapids whose rags-to-riches story captured the imagination of the entire nation during his pro football career.

Warner lives in Arizona and served on the search committee when Desert Mountain was looking for a new head coach last year. Warner's son, Kade, is a star receiver at Desert Mountain and Warner had worked as a volunteer assistant at the school on a part-time basis with the previous head coach.

That changed when Morrissey left Iowa to become the coach at Desert Mountain following the 2014 high school campaign, a move brought about by his family's desire to live closer to his wife's parents in Arizona. Morrissey and Warner, a pair of high school quarterbacks from Iowa, quickly became friends and Morrissey invited Warner to become a full-time assistant at the school.

Bohannon tops Metro basketball stats

Jordan Bohannon’s blazing start to the high school basketball season has him among the state’s offensive leaders.

Bohannon, the Linn-Mar senior who has committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes, leads Class 4A players in 3-point goals (26) and is third in scoring average (23.3) He also is shooting 90.9 percent from the free-throw line (30 of 33).

Bohannon poured in 40 points with nine 3-point goals against Prairie Dec. 18, both Class 4A highs this season. His 195 career 3-pointers ranks No. 3 in Metro history behind his brother, Jason (230), and Prairie’s Josh Kimm (205).