Norbie Wilson has a vision.

And it was formed at the top of a ladder.

Shortly after being named the head baseball coach at the College of The Albemarle’s revived baseball program last year, Wilson started thinking about an on-campus stadium. The perfect location, he felt, was right behind the school in an open field facing the Pasquotank River.

“I went into the neighborhood and borrowed me a ladder,” he said. “I set up the ladder right about where I thought home plate should be and climbed to the top.

“I got the most beautiful view of the river with the geese and the ducks coming in and I started thinking about McCovey Cove in San Francisco. We’d have something just like it in right field.

“What a great location for a ballpark.”

Don’t expect to be buying tickets to the Palace on the Pasquotank anytime soon, however. While COA raised nearly a half-million dollars to bring back athletics, none of the money was earmarked for building a stadium.

For the foreseeable future, home games will be played at the city-owned Holmes Field at Knobbs Creek Recreation Park, where they have been playing this year.

“Most of the funds we raised went into an endowment so we can keep things going,” said Dolphins athletic director Jeff Carter. “We can’t use any state money to build a field, either, we’d have to raise it.”

Carter figures “around $300,000” would get it done.

“We could do it cheaper if we did a lot of the work ourself and people in the community were willing to donate labor and materials,” he said. “Coach Wilson and (assistant coach) Allen Brickhouse have had experience building high school fields, so we have some expertise. We also have 24 guys on the team who could help.

“If we had the money, we’d be out there digging. I’m thinking maybe it could be done within two years.”

Right now, there is no fund-raising plan in place because the college’s entire focus has been on producing a competitive baseball team.

And the Dolphins have done that. COA is 17-14 overall in its first season since 1976 and is 10-7 in its conference, Region 10 of the National Junior College Athletic Association.

While Wilson, Carter and the college are grateful for what the city’s recreation department has done to make Knobbs Creek available, the wet and cold weather that marred the early part of the season produced logistical nightmares since the Dolphins share the field with Elizabeth City State and have to rely on the rec department to make the field playable.

This spring, COA has conducted practices on the college lawn, at Pasquotank County High School and at Virginia Beach’s First Colonial High School, where Wilson was once the head coach. Wet field conditions caused games to be moved to Pasquotank and to Nansemond River High School in Suffolk (Va.).

Wilson believes if COA had its own field, the players and coaches might have been able to get it ready faster and more often.

Even when field conditions were good, there was still the matter of getting to and from practices and games and the negative impact an off-campus playing field could have on recruiting.

“Our home field is really our bus,” Wilson said. “Every kid on our team is used to having their own field in high school. This has been a tough adjustment for them.

“When we bring in recruits, they can read all about what I’ve done as a coach in the past, but what they want to know is what I’m going to do for them here. A field on campus would really help. I think it is the most important thing that will happen to the program. It will give them a place they can be proud of.”

Carter thinks an on-campus ball field would be good for the college, too.

“It would draw people to the campus and it would get the students more involved,” he said. “To have afternoon games right here at the school would do wonders. We could also host tournaments. That would give us more exposure and maybe bring in some money.”

While COA has yet to raise a dime for a field, it already has design plans for a stadium that could be constructed in the area behind the school that contains the open field and an overflow parking lot. A site survey was done and College of The Albemarle architecture professor Charles Purser had his students design a field as a class project, with input from the athletic staff.

“They did a great job,” Wilson said. “It would be a really nice field.”

Carter is hopeful COA can begin fundraising once the season is over. The first step is to get the approval of new college president Kandi W. Deitemeyer and the Board of Trustees. The retiring president, Lynne M. Bunch, was a staunch advocate for the return of sports to COA.

“I met the new president when the faculty had a chance to interview her and she seemed very supportive of athletics,” Carter said. “She is coming from a junior college that had sports, so I feel good about getting her support.”

Having only recently completed a major fundraising campaign and facing a sluggish economy, the Dolphins might find new dollars hard to come by. But Carter is optimistic.

“Last time Fred and Jan Riley headed up the campaign and got lots of help from people like Doug and Diana Gardner, Don and Roberta McCabe, (Dr.) Bill Sterritt, David and Rhonda Twiddy and others,” he said. “They had some great ideas.

“Then, they were selling an idea to the community. Now there’s a real product. We can’t build a field by selling hot dogs, we’re going to need some sizeable donations.

“But I feel like once people realize how important this is, they’ll want to contribute.”