For over five decades, the Broken Arrow Girls Softball organization has encouraged sportsmanship, fair play, teamwork, and lifelong friendships through both competitive and recreational softball.
Recreational league girls' softball is offered from Monday to Thursday at Arrowhead Park, 300 E. Washington St., where girls have been playing ball since 1995.
“They come out, and that’s where they start, anywhere from T-Ball on up to age 14,” said Broken Arrow Girls Softball Chairwoman Tammy Seale. “They just get to come out and play and compete against each other.”
Seale has been involved with the organization for 20 years, first as a parent and now as a grandparent. She says on the weekends, girls of all ages come to Arrowhead Park to play in competitive tournaments.
However, she says Arrowhead Park's 12 softball fields, which still have dirt infields and grass outfields, need to be updated. Turf infields to allow play to resume quickly after rain and lessen the impact of weather-related interruptions. In spring 2025, two-thirds of the organization’s games were canceled due to rain.
Additionally, due to Arrowhead’s current lack of turf and the likelihood of rainouts, especially in spring and fall, the number of teams coming into the city for tournament play has declined significantly.
“Turf is really important because there are a lot of teams in the area that do not want to come and play tournaments and spend all the money to be here and sit in hotels because of the rain,” Seale said. “So that’s one of the challenges, as well as a lack of lighting. The lighting is very outdated and needs to be updated for safety.”
The park’s last major updates were made possible through the voter-approved 2018 General Obligation Bond. It included a new umpire’s room, a restroom, a concession building, a concrete breezeway with a picnic area, and new sidewalks.
Proposition 8 focuses on sports and public facilities improvements across Broken Arrow. Unlike the other propositions, Proposition 8 would be funded through a temporary 0.5% sales tax increase dedicated specifically to Sports Facility Improvements. The sales tax would be implemented on July 1, 2026, and would expire on June 30, 2031, and would be dedicated to only funding the projects in this proposition.
If Proposition 8 is approved by voters, the following improvements are slated for Arrowhead Park:
Turf conversion for 12 infields-$5 million
Regrade and sod 12 outfields-$2.8 million
Backstop Improvements-$400,000
Renovate warmup areas-$400,000
Landscaping Trees-$30,000
Front entrance-$70,000
Parking lot improvements-$1.5 million
LED lighting system retrofit-$2.75 million
Retaining wall repairs-$150,000
Sidewalk repairs-$50,000
Access gates-$90,000
Secondary entrance on west side-$60,000
Total Arrowhead improvements-$13,300,000
With Olympic Softball events scheduled for Oklahoma in 2028, Seale sees this as a unique opportunity for Broken Arrow to promote girls' softball by leveraging the excitement and attention the Olympics will bring to the sport locally.
When asked about the importance of residents becoming engaged with their city by voting for quality-of-life improvements, Seale said that every vote matters and that Broken Arrow is a caring community.
"We want to make sure that we’re putting our money, our funds, where it needs to go to continue to grow our community, but we also want to be good stewards of our money as well.”
