Football is indeed King. Just ask the good folks in Allen, TX, a northern Dallas suburb. A couple years ago they spent $60M on this 18,000 seat state-of-the-art high school football stadium:
They have since gone on to win two back-to-back State 5A Football Championships.
Pretty swanky, huh? And it's only the 5th largest high school football stadium in Texas. (Yes, we here in Texas call it "football", even though it is rarely
kicked with the foot. I'm guessing that's because "handball" was already taken.)
Allen does, however, have one little problem....their stadium is falling apart. Some major cracks have appeared in the structure and yesterday the Allen School District closed their pride and joy pending a top-to-bottom engineering investigation.
The contractor said from his hideout headquarters deep in the Costa Rican jungle that he would cooperate completely. And have it all ready to go by the start of the next football season in September. *Liar, liar, pants on fire*
Still, I'm thinking it's better to have a crack in your stadium than a crack in your head, which is what they're now saying soccer players have after a few seasons of this:
I've always wondered about this. "Listen up kids. I'm gonna throw...er...kick a ball at you and I want you to catch it with your head and knock it into that goal."
"And by 'head' I mean the TOP of your head,"
It seems they did an autopsy on a soccer player that died prematurely and found that he had CTD, which stands for "something you don't want".
Here's my rather unscientific solution to this terrible problem: Let's give soccer players helmets and pads to give them a little protection, and let them catch the ball with their hands instead of their heads. And encourage "contact".
What could possibly go wrong?
Just a reminder....the REAL football season starts in just 6 months. :)
Happy Friday everyone! Reporting from Texas, I'm...
S
We put new sod down on our HS field!
ReplyDeleteMy oldest grandchildren attend Allen HS. My granddaughter is graduating in June, and it was supposed to be held in the stadium. Two other sets of grandparents from Atlanta already made their airline reservations to attend. So, now the mad scramble has begun on where their gigantic class is going to be able to hold graduation ceremonies. Glad I am only the grandmother and am told where I need to be at a specific time. Nancy R.
ReplyDeleteI hope they didn't use the same contractor for Jerry World.
ReplyDeleteHa! I'm kinda hopeing they DID. ;)
DeleteFunny post unless you are playing one of the sports.
ReplyDeleteAs you know I'm not much of a sports fan but I am enjoying being home where football doesn't mean soccer.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started on high school sports... If the stuff that happens to those kids wasn't called "football" it'd be called "child abuse."
ReplyDeleteWhy should tax payers bear the expense of a football stadium, when technically, football is a hobby. A hobby for a small percentage of high schoolers - all male, to top it off. My hobby in high school was photography. Nobody bought me a camera - nor would I have expected someone to do so.
OK, I'll stop venting. :-)
I don't know about at the high school level, by at the college level football is BIG business, bringing in $100M at major schools, which pays for baseball, basketball, and all those other "balls". Plus it keeps the kids off of hard drugs in instead funnels them into the more socially acceptable chemicals, like steroids. :)
DeleteWhat a shame. I'm betting we could have built that stadium for only 58 or 59 million and had no falling apart. Besides, if there were problems, and you got paid that kind of money, why be anywhere that omeone might find you? They got duct tape in Texas, it should be OK.
ReplyDeleteSee? This is why everyone should just play BASEBALL!
ReplyDelete