Wednesday, April 11, 2007

A Palace?


I am going to take a few minutes and write on something that matters to very few people outside a few square miles in Oklahoma.

My high school alma mater, Tecumseh High School in Tecumseh, Oklahoma, is in the process of building a new football stadium. A bond issue was passed last year, and they are building a 3,000 seat stadium immediately north of the high school. This stadium is sorely needed, as they are currently playing on a 70-year old field that now holds maybe 1500 people, and has very little parking, forcing fans to park in the surrounding neighborhood. The current field also only has a small dressing room, barely big enough for one team. The home team buses from the practice field at the school, where they dress for games. The teams cram into the small building at halftime for adjustments. I apologize for not having pictures, but it's really just three square blocks in a neighborhood with a football field on it.

The school has been on the cusp of moving to a higher classification for years, and now expects to move up in the next realignment. Therefore, the urgency has been demonstrated for a new facility, 30 years in the making/dreaming.

This isn't a really huge deal to most, but they are doing some things right with this stadium. First, some of the bleachers on the home side will have chairbacks. This is standard fare at a lot of high schools, but is something foreign to Tecumseh. Also, there will be Field Turf at the new stadium, as purchased by the school board last night. That is somewhat normal for a lot of schools in Texas (even some one-high school towns in classes 3A & 4A), but it is still unusual in Oklahoma. Schools there don't spend quite the bucks on football like they do in Texas. There are probably only a handful of schools in Oklahoma with artificial turf, and probably none of Tecumseh's size. Initially, I don't see the use, as they don't have a soccer team, nor do they have a second high school with which to share the stadium. But, it's a nice feature, well-deserved for a school which has had sub-par facilities for so long. And, the coach or maintenance workers will be glad to not have to mow grass in the summer.

My hat is off to them. They are building a facility they can be proud of. It is long-awaited and well-deserved.

Update: A video preview of the new facility is posted above.

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