A conversation with Jack Roeder produces this fact: You don’t have to ask him what he’s doing these days after retiring from the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

Jack has been very busy behind the scenes on the development of Prospect Meadows, the proposed development out on Highway 13 that would enable the Metro area to have a grouping of baseball and softball fields that would enhance the available area for games by leaps and bounds.

Jack has been working on this since he retired as general manager of the Kernels, working with the Prospect Meadows directors, the Linn County Board of Supervisors and others to develop this park concept. A feasibility study has been completed and it produced a positive report, and most recently the ruling has come down that this is a non-profit venture and will be allowed as a tax deduction. That was one of the big hurdles the project had to overcome.

Next up would be the donating or leasing of the ground by the county to the non-profit group, and then construction could begin if that approval is given by the Linn County Board of Supervisors. So I wish Jack god’s speed in this endeavor, because it will take a great deal of fundraising after all of the approvals to begin construction, hopefully in 2012.

As set up, Prospect Meadows will be a great boon to the area and its development. I hope it will get great support.

PART II: Also along the baseball lines, welcome Tim Evans to the head baseball job at Kirkwood Community College. The reports I’ve gotten on his clinic last weekend were outstanding. It was professionally done, and John Lewis, the retiring coach at Kirkwood, also helped out with the clinic that was attended by 180 players who wanted to get better.

And also in the Kirkwood line, Johnson Hall’s re-do is coming to completion and from all reports, it’s a stunning facility. So congratulations to them. The new Johnson Hall will include a Hall of Fame that will enhance the total picture of already super Kirkwood athletics.

PART III: One golf note, of course. In Ryder Cup-type competition, Indian Creek Country Club last weekend defeated the Hunters Ridge team for the third straight year. The Hunters Ridge team had a 5 ½-point lead going to old Indian Creek, but my spies said the rich boys then lost by 15 ½ points.

Talk about home-field advantage!

(Bob Brooks is sports director at KMRY and has been one of the leading voices of college and prep sports in Eastern Iowa for more than 65 years. He is a 10-time winner of the Iowa Sportscaster of the Year Award, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana in 2004. His sports reports can be heard weekday afternoons at 4:30 and 5:30, and Saturdays at 6:40 for the Hawkeye football wrap-up.)