Minneapolis softball fields were neglected for years. Now there’s a plan.

Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board are taking steps to respond to a Title IX investigation nearly two years ago that found neglect of high school girls sports, particularly fast-pitch softball.

The proposed solution, to start building new fields next spring, comes after years of advocacy by softball parents.

When Annique London’s daughter played softball for Minneapolis Southwest High School, the neck-and-neck final game of the citywide conference came to an undignified end when an adult recreational league kicked the girls off the field before they could finish. The public schools rely on Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board facilities, and park programs take precedence in a city where community groups compete for limited space.

That moment outraged softball parents, who had long resented how their daughters had to use unkempt fields without baselines, dugouts and regulation fencing. Their complaints led to a federal Title IX, or sex-discrimination, investigation into Minneapolis Public Schools and a Park Board promise to build better softball fields equaling those available to boys baseball.

Five years after that game, London now has another daughter starting high school. This fall she found herself looking out across Pershing Field Park, the home field of Southwest High, and thinking about how bedraggled it still looked.

“We’ve literally not moved the needle at all,” she said. “When do we get to see girls cared about in high school?”

Behind the scenes, the school district and Park Board have come up with an answer.

On Wednesday, the Park Board is expected to take up the same plan, plus additional improvements to Neiman Sports Complex and Bryn Mawr Meadows Park, which the parks would undertake independently of the school district. Under the agreement, the Park Board would be in charge of ongoing maintenance, and promise to give the school district priority use during the softball season.

If approved, construction would begin next spring, and the new fields would be ready for the 2027 season.

The development of these plans has been frustrating for parents.

Earlier promises to expand girls’ access at the higher quality Bossen Fields ran into resistance from an LGBT league that was worried about being sidelined itself, and the girls were relocated to another park with overgrown grass and a single port-a-potty. The dustup, covered by local TV news this summer, led to several meetings with park administration and promises of permanent improvements.

“We are years, decades behind everybody else in the country as it relates to access to fields for girl athletes in this city,” Karl Ulfers, a father to three girls who play softball admonished Park Board commissioners at a November meeting.

And at a recent open house at northeast Minneapolis’ Jackson Square Park, softball dads Chris Rath and Peter Bodurtha said they were excited for the improvements that the parks and schools had in store. If all goes according to schedule, their high-school-age daughters would get the chance to use these new fields after years of being embarrassed to invite suburban competition to Minneapolis.

“In the city, what do we not have a lot of? Extra land,” said Bodurtha. “You know going in there’s going to have to be some sort of a compromise. We’re not going to be able to do what they do in Wayzata or whatever, OK, but what’s going to be the best thing given our environment? Quality is dignity.”

There may still be snags to work out before the plans are finalized, park commissioners say.

Park Board President Cathy Abene, who listed fast-pitch facilities as one of her re-election priorities, said commissioners need to ensure funds are available for upkeep of the fields and that the board may look to the school district to share those costs.

Commissioner Billy Menz has proposed an amendment to the plan that would potentially move Jackson Square Park field to Northeast Athletic Fields instead, saying he’s heard some grumbling from the immediate neighbors that they were not adequately engaged about the transformative changes coming to their quiet neighborhood park.

“I feel like this is why Title IX exists, because when people won’t make change on their own, sometimes they need to be forced to,” she said. “It’s been a very long road. I had a lot of people along the road not sure that this would have any impact at all, but it did.”