McGavock had to hit pause on the typical summer maintenance of its high school baseball field in Tennessee. Unidentified thieves swiped approximately $9,000 worth of equipment from the program, including a John Deere Gator utility vehicle.
They were very specific in what they stole.
This high school baseball robbery prevents the Titans from keeping their field in peak condition. And it sounds like the person (or people) responsible for the heist knew exactly what they were doing.
McGavock High School is located in Nashville.
Established in 1981, McGavock Comprehensive High School serves ~1,900 students in Grades 9-12. It is located on the east side of Nashville, about 7.5 miles from Lower Broadway as the largest high school in Tennessee by square footage.
McGavock, a public school, is a Model Academy School affiliated with the National Career Academy Coalition. The 14-acre building features 82 classrooms, 14 science labs, two gymnasiums, two cafeterias, a 586-seat auditorium, a two-story library, a student-run courtroom, a health science lab, a green room, a planetarium, a computer lab, a credit union, a flight simulator and a bistro. That doesn’t include the four softball fields, baseball diamond, six tennis courts, two gymnasiums, football stadium or track.
In sports, the Titans compete in Class 6A for football and Division I Class 4A (Region 4, District 8) in everything else. Their baseball program has not had a lot of success in recent years.
McGavock has not finished above .500 or made the playoffs in high school baseball since 2021. It went a combined 39-57 over the last five seasons. Not great. However, many of the top players in the region are recruited to play at a private school by the time they get to high school, which diminishes the talent pool.
The high school baseball program had its equipment stolen.
Head baseball coach Kevin Holt handles field maintenance during the offseason. That requires a consistent routine of infield grooming like raking and dragging, mound and plate repair, edge management, mowing and watering.
Holt noticed a serious issue when he arrived to the field last week. Thousands of dollars of equipment were missing. Thieves stole a John Deer Gator and some weed killer. But nothing else…
“A John Deere four-by-two Gator and I think they took our weed killer also, which is weird. There was only about half of a bottle left, but those two things are the only thing I can tell that were taken. We did have a chain drag on the back of it, but that was taken off and kind of set up inside.”
He told WKRN that it appeared as though a crowbar was used to open the doors of the fieldhouse.
“This little indentation looks like [the door] was pried open. They opened this to get the gator out, backed it out, and then when they closed it back, they did not latch on the top and bottom.”
The lack of John Deere Gator prevents him from doing what he needs to do.
“I can modify the lawnmower to do some of the work, like dragging the infield, but none of the sand can be moved. The gator had an adjustable bed on it, so that was perfect. Plus, we kind of have the little hook-ups, the clamp that goes on the back. I don’t have those right now. They would be easily replaced, but I can’t retrofit the mower to do everything the gator did.”
What’s weird is that the fieldhouse — which housed the Gator — is not visible from the road. This high school baseball heist was executed by someone with knowledge of the facility. It was not a spur-of-the-moment robbery. It was planned.