Creating Win-Wins for Kids & Baseball in Wiseburn
Creating true win-win solutions—where everyone benefits and no one loses—requires vision, collaboration, and a shared commitment to community. That’s exactly what the Da Vinci Schools Board of Trustees, the Wiseburn USD Board, and their leadership teams achieved through a creative partnership that balances student needs with community opportunity.
Behind Da Vinci Connect’s TK–8 campus—also home to 50 district preschoolers and the soon-to-open Futures Plus adult transition program—a new CIF-regulation baseball field is taking shape for the WDV Wolves high school team and for the benefit of the entire Wiseburn community. At the same time, the space has been thoughtfully reimagined to include upgraded lunch and play areas—featuring a new dry riverbed and garden—ensuring that the hundreds of young students who learn and grow here each day have ample, dedicated space to run, play, and thrive.
This shared vision not only delivers a long-awaited home field for high school athletes, but also enhances the everyday experience for our youngest learners—creating a vibrant, inclusive space for learning, exploring, recreation, and community connection.
Construction on the new baseball field began in May, following months of thoughtful planning and collaboration between Wiseburn and Da Vinci leadership teams. The project is expected to be completed by November, with team practices set to begin later in the year and full readiness aligned with the start of the 2025–26 season. Simultaneously, enhancements to Da Vinci Connect’s campus—including the garden and hardtop play areas—are largely complete, providing immediate benefits to students as the broader transformation continues.
A History of the WDV Wolves Baseball Program
The new field has been years in the making. When you speak with current players, administrators, board leaders, and coaches, they all share stories that reflect the long and meaningful history behind it—a testament to a shared vision finally becoming reality.
Since the launch of the WDV Wolves baseball program in the 2017–18 school year, WDV Wolves players have never had a field to call their own. Day after day, they’ve traveled to distant locations for practices, borrowed fields from other teams to host so-called “home” games, and played without the energy of a hometown crowd. With no field nearby, it’s rare for anyone outside of parents and family members to be there cheering them on.
Over the past seven years, players have joined the WDV Baseball team and graduated without experiencing the pride of playing a true home game. Each season, players held onto the hope that one day they’d take the field on turf they could call their own. Now, that long-standing dream is finally becoming a reality – thanks to a collaborative effort between Wiseburn and Da Vinci to redesign the space and share the cost.
“When I first joined the team, I was a little jealous of other kids who could walk to their field from school, but over time I realized that all the bus rides for our team helped us to grow as people and helped us to bond with each other,” said Eddie Sanchez, a senior on the Varsity team at the time of this interview. “I really love that the guys are getting a field now though, especially for the younger guys. When I got here four years ago, we had nothing. Seeing the progress happen right now is insane to me, especially when I had no hope of getting a field before. I’m heading to a community college, so I’ll still be local and I’m really excited to be able to come back and finally have a place to watch my team continue to grow. I love it. I started in Wiseburn in sixth grade, and the growth and pride is crazy right now,” he continued.
Building Community Around Baseball
Nearly 80% of the Varsity players on the WDV Baseball team grew up in Wiseburn, or attended Wiseburn schools. Having a homefield in the community they live in – or grew up going to school in – is incredibly meaningful to them. They believe it will not only boost their sense of support and improve their performance, but also deepen their pride in the team and give them something bigger than themselves to play for. A true home field, they feel, will inspire younger members of the community, and give their peers, local families, and future Wolves a place to gather, cheer them on, and be part of something special.
“I’ve been going to school in this community since sixth grade and I feel like it will be a great opportunity for people to come out and actually see us play and see the progress and work we put in,” said Xavier Horton, a sophomore on the Varsity team. “It’s been hard not having a homefield, and when we go to other schools, they have school support and students who come out and we just don’t have that right now. But with the new field, I feel like we’re going to have that…we won’t feel left out and we’ll have more opportunities.”
On the north side of the field sits a Little League diamond, where Wiseburn Little League currently practices and plays – and will continue to do so. It’s not uncommon to see Little League teams practicing just steps away while high school players run drills on the adjacent softball field.
“We get the Wiseburn Little League kids who practice right next to us and I feel like it will be a good experience for them to look forward to playing in high school and it’ll be cool that we’ll be able to see them develop, help them out, and have Little League nights”, said Horton, the sophomore player.
Zeek Barba, the Varsity Head Coach of the WDV Baseball program, said that he looks forward to partnering with Wiseburn Little League and helping to develop even more community around baseball in Wiseburn. “The other day at practice our players were hitting in the batting cages and some of the Little League kids who were practicing right next to them were ‘oohing and aahing’ at the high school boys’ hits,” said Barba. “And that’s what we want. We want the younger kids in our community to see the older kids working hard, playing games, having pride in their homefield, and to know that they can strive for that too,” he continued.
When the 2025-26 season starts, we hope you’ll join us for our very first Opening Day game on our new home field – date and time to be announced when the schedule is released early next year.
The Kids that Share the Space for Play
Creating win-win solutions often requires creativity—and this project is a perfect example of that. Many people don’t realize this, but the school that sits in front of the new baseball field space, is home to about 250 kids each day as a part of our Connect TK-8 program. It’s also home to 50 of the district’s preschool students, and will soon be the home of the district’s Future’s Plus adult transition program for students aged 18-22.
To ensure that kids still have plenty of room to play, run, and have fun, the District and Da Vinci Schools’ leadership have thoughtfully redesigned the space to include upgraded lunch and play areas, including a beautiful new dry riverbed with rocks for exploring, an outdoor classroom, improved playhouses, a sensory garden, clear pathways for native plants, a music station, and much more.
A Field of Dreams, Rooted in Community
This project is more than a construction effort—it’s a symbol of what’s possible when a community comes together with creativity, care, and commitment to kids.
