This is what a $60 Million Dollar High School Stadium Looks like...

[walby2]

Unreal stadium. That is incredible for high school football. Where I'm from, high school football facilities are weed-strewn fields with a couple of 100-seat portable grandstands on the sideline.

At this point in my post I was about to make some snide comments about Texas and an unhealthy fixation on amateur sports played by teenage boys, but then I remembered I live in the only country in the world that obsesses over the World Junior Hockey Championships. :flagcanada:

[MadmanLA]

That stadium is nicer then a handful of Division 1A stadiums.

Plus you could build a high school for $60 million so I think the WTF questions are pretty warranted. Probably one of those areas where god forbid a dime should be spent on welfare or public works projects. That's just pork barrel waste right there. But $60 million for a high school football stadium? Hell yeah.

Try $500 million...if you're building a new-fangled a couple of miles west of Downtown L.A.; the local school district built a new "learning center" (yes, that's they're calling them nowadays) on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel a few years ago. This was the same place here Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968.

[pmoehrin]

That stadium is nicer then a handful of Division 1A stadiums.

Plus you could build a high school for $60 million so I think the WTF questions are pretty warranted. Probably one of those areas where god forbid a dime should be spent on welfare or public works projects. That's just pork barrel waste right there. But $60 million for a high school football stadium? Hell yeah.

Try $500 million...if you're building a new-fangled a couple of miles west of Downtown L.A.; the local school district built a new "learning center" (yes, that's they're calling them nowadays) on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel a few years ago. This was the same place here Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968.

Oh I'm sure you can find plenty of schools that spent hundreds of millions of dollars on their new schools. Not much evidence to suggest alot of these bells and whistles on their own actually improve the quality of education. Its even worse in college because capital improvement projects is where alot of my tuition money went to and considering the budget shortfalls they had for other things that I thought were more important to my education, I took issue with it. But that's another topic.

Only point I was trying to make is for $60 million you could build a high school. It may not be a very big one and not in prime real estate, but should be able to hold a few hundred students though.

[KDubK414]

Actually, Texas invests pretty well in education. I think they're hiring more music teachers as the rest of the country tries to fire them.

Well they need to cause you can't have a high school football game without the marching band.

[The_Admiral]

Let the record show I tried to say something nice about Texas with no pejorative subtexts.

[BigMac12]

Looks like a FBS stadium.

[DarkJourney]

TEXAS STATE MOTTO

First comes God.

Then family.

Then football.

or is that the other way around

[DEAD!]

If only Terrell Owens had stuck around in Allen a little longer...

[29texan]

If only Terrell Owens had stuck around in Allen a little longer...

He STILL wouldn't have even sniffed that field.

One thing about these huge high school stadiums, you'll see most of them in DFW and Houston suburbs. North Dallas and North East Fort Worth especially since they're home to sons of former Cowboys/NFL players. Rich kids, basically.

I gotta tell ya, it's a damn shame for Prairie View A&M when our stadium is outshined by a high school. Then again, it's no surpise.

By the way, this is what $60 million gets you for PVAMU:

.... ALL of that, cost as much as it did to build the stadium in Allen.

[bosrs1]

Damn, my high school never had a stadium like this one, and I doubt they ever will.

High School? My college didn't even have a stadium this big. Ours was only 6,800 "seats" if you can call narrow wooden bleachers "seats".

[sportstar1212]

Sure beats my school, which only has metal bleachers that seat about 50 people at the most. Even the biggest field in our division only seats 200-300 people.

[HedleyLamarr]

You know what this means. We cannot be far from calls to pay the players.

Catholic schools already recruit players. It wouldn't be that surprising to hear that.

Public schools "recruit" players, too.

If Texas is anything like Valdosta, the parents of promising Pop Warner football players are offered lucrative jobs if they move to within a certain school's zoning limits, so that their son will play for a certain high school.

[The_Admiral]

Honest question from someone who went to a small high school that didn't much care about its sports: what sort of benefits come from a high school winning lots of football games? Does it generate revenue to go back into the school? Does it just make coaches feel good? I understand the machine at the college level, but not high school.

[dfwabel]

You know what this means. We cannot be far from calls to pay the players.

Catholic schools already recruit players. It wouldn't be that surprising to hear that.

Public schools "recruit" players, too.

If Texas is anything like Valdosta, the parents of promising Pop Warner football players are offered lucrative jobs if they move to within a certain school's zoning limits, so that their son will play for a certain high school.

Oh, it occurs in within the public schools within the Metroplex. For hoops it is generally to go to an inner-city school either within the DISD(Dallas) or FWISD(Ft. Worth). Football is more suburban.

Case in point, a powerhouse/nationally known team, in February 2010, Southlake Carroll accepted an All-State QB from Oklahoma, who was an early commit to Arizona named Daxx Garman. Garman had eligibility issues in Oklahoma, as he played at one HS, but did not get a waiver to attend that school.

The parents who had kids already "in the Carroll district and football system" blew the whistle on their own program and caused the local news to investigate. He was ruled ineligible, his appeal denied and now he is at Okie State.

[dfwabel]

If only Terrell Owens had stuck around in Allen a little longer...

He STILL wouldn't have even sniffed that field.

One thing about these huge high school stadiums, you'll see most of them in DFW and Houston suburbs. North Dallas and North East Fort Worth especially since they're home to sons of former Cowboys/NFL players. Rich kids, basically.

I gotta tell ya, it's a damn shame for Prairie View A&M when our stadium is outshined by a high school. Then again, it's no surpise.

While those stadiums are in the suburbs, as has been previously mentioned that the communities float the bonds to pay for said facility upgrades.

Plus, keep in mind that the enormous "Senior HS" in the Dallas/Houston suburbs are essentially a 4,000-5,000 student campus with only grades 11 and 12.

Ninth and tenth graders are in a separate school, which they claim is to prevent bullying and to acknowledge that there is a difference between a kid who is 14 and a kid who could have been 'held back' and is a 19 year old Senior.

[crashcarson15]

Honest question from someone who went to a small high school that didn't much care about its sports: what sort of benefits come from a high school winning lots of football games? Does it generate revenue to go back into the school? Does it just make coaches feel good? I understand the machine at the college level, but not high school.

It can create a better overall vibe at the school - not sure how that really changes things, but hey.

[mania]

Actually, Texas invests pretty well in education.

Not quite.

[omnivore]

That stadium is nicer then a handful of Division 1A stadiums.

Plus you could build a high school for $60 million so I think the WTF questions are pretty warranted. Probably one of those areas where god forbid a dime should be spent on welfare or public works projects. That's just pork barrel waste right there. But $60 million for a high school football stadium? Hell yeah.

Was thinking the same thing, that this is nicer than a host of FCS stadiums -- bigger too -- and would compete quite nicely in low-level FBS if it had a bigger capacity. Somewhere, the Kibbie Dome weeps.

[sportstar1212]

Honest question from someone who went to a small high school that didn't much care about its sports: what sort of benefits come from a high school winning lots of football games? Does it generate revenue to go back into the school? Does it just make coaches feel good? I understand the machine at the college level, but not high school.

It can create a better overall vibe at the school - not sure how that really changes things, but hey.

I'll ask my cousin, who is going to the school with the best team in the city. I wouldn't know because my school's team never wins.

[topcityhockey]

Honest question from someone who went to a small high school that didn't much care about its sports: what sort of benefits come from a high school winning lots of football games? Does it generate revenue to go back into the school? Does it just make coaches feel good? I understand the machine at the college level, but not high school.

It definitely helps to generate revenue, if a team is winning games there is going to be a larger crowd for the games. Larger crowds means increased ticket sales, souvenir sales and concessions. I help with my old high school's booster club and we make on average $1000 a game just at the concessions stand and our football team usually sucks. When we are doing good or have a visiting school that is doing really well where the fans will travel we make about $2000+ a game. Not bad money for a school in the "ghetto" of Topeka, KS.

A winning team also helps to raise the profile of the program, which makes it more likely that scouts will come to recruit players. That is the real benefit-helping the players get to the next level.