$60M high school football stadium

[goillini75]

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/08...blockID=772559

Look at this a 60 million dollar high school stadium
With the economy and it being mainly tax dollars paying for it
Not the time to do it and for a high school i hope they plan on using it for a lot of other things colleges and state championships

[KBLEE]

That's crazy...

[Sure Shot]

I gotta tell ya, as a former high school player and a huge fan of football generally, I just don't get it. Why would people be that obsessed with such a lower level of the game? It's turning into the Hunger Games at some point.

[ChitownIllini]

I just spent the last three and a half years living in Dallas and high school football in Texas is on a whole different level. While most high schools there don't have $60m stadiums, almost all rival most community colleges and junior colleges.

When the Packers and Steelers played the Superbowl in Jerry's Bowl, the Steelers practiced on TCU's campus. The Packers, who were supposed to practice at the Cowboys' facility (it collapsed earlier in the year), ended up practicing at Highland Park High School's indoor football facility.

[Ransom Stoddard]

It's Texas. Conventional logic goes out the window.

[uiba99]

Yeah, welcome to Texas. I was in Beaumont for a training a couple of weeks ago and I saw a stadium that was even bigger than the ones we have in San Antonio. Of course they labeled it some multi-purpose thing so that it would sound better to the taxpayers, but it was basically a mini version of Cowboys Stadium.

[illinifan31]

I can't imagine what this does to the students mind set. I wonder how big of hot shots they think they are for the rest of their lives because they played in stadiums like this.

[carmelillini]

Tim Riggins gives a thumbs up.

[DanvIllini]

Originally Posted by carmelillini

Tim Riggins gives a thumbs up.

Apparently its gonna be Buddy Garrity Chevrolet Arena and there is gonna be a statue of Smash Williams out front.

[carmelillini]

Originally Posted by DanvIllini

Apparently its gonna be Buddy Garrity Chevrolet Arena and there is gonna be a statue of Smash Williams out front.

[256ILLINI]

I hope I never live in Texas

[DanvIllini]

Originally Posted by 256ILLINI

I hope I never live in Texas

You could live in Alaska...

[ChitownIllini]

Originally Posted by 256ILLINI

I hope I never live in Texas

I just finished a three and a half year sentence in Dallas. I don't recommend it.

[uiba99]

Originally Posted by ChitownIllini

I just finished a three and a half year sentence in Dallas. I don't recommend it.

Don't knock all of Texas. Austin and San Antonio are incredible. I'm just glad we moved here before I visited the rest of the state. If we'd gone to, say, Beaumont first we might still be in Milwaukee.

[Ransom Stoddard]

Originally Posted by uiba99

Don't knock all of Texas. Austin and San Antonio are incredible. I'm just glad we moved here before I visited the rest of the state. If we'd gone to, say, Beaumont first we might still be in Milwaukee.

My company has a major client in the DFW suburbs and I spend a week there every couple of months. Most of the people are nice until you get them on the topic of Texas. Anytime someone uses the word "secede" they are dead serious. And the Bush family may as well get painted in to Michelangelo's "The Last Supper."

[OlivetNaz]

The only thing that makes this palatable (barely) is the fact that the bond issue that paid for that stadium ALSO included the monies for brand new state-of-the-art fine arts facilities for their music and arts programs (constructed at the same time).

At least they aren't upgrading football at the expense of the fine arts. That right there is an improvement over what most places would do.

Originally Posted by ChitownIllini

I just finished a three and a half year sentence in Dallas. I don't recommend it.

I spent five years of my childhood in Richardson and Plano. Not bad if you have connections or grew up there - but if you are ever deemed a "yankee," whooeee, watch out!

[ChitownIllini]

Originally Posted by uiba99

Don't knock all of Texas. Austin and San Antonio are incredible. I'm just glad we moved here before I visited the rest of the state. If we'd gone to, say, Beaumont first we might still be in Milwaukee.

I've actually been to San Antonio, Austin and Beaumont and tend to agree with you. You'd think such a big state would have more than two decent towns.

[uiba99]

Originally Posted by OlivetNaz

I spent five years of my childhood in Richardson and Plano. Not bad if you have connections or grew up there - but if you are ever deemed a "yankee," whooeee, watch out!

One of my first stops when we arrived here was at the car dealership so I could get my emissions test taken care of (yeah, I'm that kind of gal). Of course the guy at the service center sees the Wisconsin plates on my car and we get to talking and he jokingly says to me, "Down here we have two kinds of Yankees, regular Yankees and damn Yankees. Do you know why?"

I told him....no.

"The damn Yankees are the ones who stay!"

And we both laughed. But it was very good natured. Might be a little more serious in some other parts of the state.

[wpr]

I realize HS officials are not the best trained PR people around but these statements are silly.

coach:

"Most of the negative stuff that comes out are from people outside of Allen," football coach Tom Westerberg said. "I don't really worry about that a whole lot. We've drawn quite a few people to the games and I think for the majority of the big games it will be full."

So that means it will be half full for regular games? "Big games" is that 2 or 3 a year?

AD:

Allen raised the money for its new stadium as part of a $119.4 million bond package in May of 2009 that passed with an impressive 63.66 percent of the vote.

Even with such support, there have been critics who say spending $60 million on a football stadium is outrageous at a time when education budgets are being slashed.

"What do I say to that?" Allen school district athletic director Steve Williams asked rhetorically. "I say we're in a community that overwhelmingly voted to build this stadium."

overwhelming? 63-64% is certainly a solid margin of victory. I don't consider it overwhelming. Perhaps I am nitpicking a bit. They certainly have to put the best spin on it they can.

"We probably played in the worst stadium for a 5A program in the Metroplex," Williams said. "We built that stadium as a 3A stadium. And then we added on to it in '87, but we outgrew that a long, long time ago. There were just so many problems every time you played in it."

There is no doubt they needed a new facility. I doubt many people would deny that. I have to wonder if they could have gotten an 18,000 seat stadium for a measly $20 or $30 million.

To understand how Allen wound up with a $60 million palace of a stadium, you have to understand Allen, Texas.

Long before Allen boomed to its current population of 84,256 (according to the 2010 census) district officials decided to remain a one-high school town.

The result is a high school with 5,388 students in grades 9-12, according to figures calculated by the University Interscholastic League, the organization that oversees public school sports and academic competitions in Texas.

Allen's varsity football team has about 100 players. There are another 100 on the two junior varsity teams, and 256 boys have signed up to play freshman football this fall.

I always wonder a little about communities who seemingly place winning games over communities that try and give as many students as possible the experience of playing games. With 2 HS they could share a slightly smaller stadium and let 44-50 kids play instead of 22-25. IF it was really about the kids and not the victories. Then they would be like Belvidere, IL who dropped off a little when they went to 2 HS.

[drumanimal]

I think this is awesome!! The marching band has 800 members That would be crazy fun to be apart of. That's more than double the size of the marching Illini. It's Texas I'm not surprised at all.

[wpr]

Originally Posted by drumanimal

I think this is awesome!! The marching band has 800 members That would be crazy fun to be apart of. That's more than double the size of the marching Illini. It's Texas I'm not surprised at all.

800 kids in the band is amazing. The school I went to had around 100 when I was there in the mid 70's. It dropped to a fraction in the 90's. The school my kids attended saw a similar decrease from the late 90's and early 00's until today.