Posted on 11/11/2014 8:01:26 AM PST by C19fan
The only thing bigger than high-school football in Texas is the caricature of high-school football in Texas that persists everywhere else. And so, as the dust settles from an election that featured ballot measures to bar Sharia law in Alabama and permit the use of sugary bait to hunt bears in Maine, it should come as little surprise that voters in the southeast corner of the Lone Star State decided to splurge on a $58 million high-school football stadium.
Part of a massive $748 million bond, the new stadium in Katy, Texas, is actually a scaled-down version of a previous stadium plan. Last year, the same voters rejected a proposal in which a new stadium comprised the lion's share ($69.5 million) of a $99 million bond. You're not reading that wrong. A $70 million high-school football stadium. The approved, slightly more modest stadium will seat 12,000 people instead of 14,000 for about $12 million less.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Goofy.
I love football. But Texas overspends on football. We need more money spent on Math/Reading and less on sports.
We need more money spent on Math/Reading...”
I, too, love football but these new stadiums, IMO, are way over the top. If high schools are going to spend money, I would love to see them offer some useful classes like we had in high school. Cooking, sewing, budgeting, basic electrical training, basic construction skill development, perhaps welding, AC repair and maintenance, etc. come to mind. All could incorporate math and reading with some practical applications.
Yes, the Allen High stadium was poorly built ... cement curing was too rushed. But to call it just a stadium is an understatement. The total structure houses classrooms, offices, and many other facilities benefiting not only sports but areas of education as well.
That's a lot of car washes and bake sales.
The ballot measure here in Maine was to BAN the use of sugary bait....donuts.....to CULL bears in Maine.
It already is permitted. The out-of-state animal rights wackos pored millions into Maine to ban the use of bait to control the black bear population, now numbered at 30,000 in Maine. The out-of-state animal rights groups lost last Tuesday.
The game wardens here are in favor of baiting bears.
Sorry to hijack this thread, but the author of the piece in “The Atlantic,” like most liberals, don’t know what they are talking about.
One of my careers was working for 25 Division II and III colleges in the Northeast.
This past summer I took a motorcycle ride through Texas. I stopped at several high school stadiums in both East and West Texas. Their stadiums would put ANY of my college stadiums to shame.
When I sent some of my former co workers the photos of the press Booths, they were just stunned. Most of the college stadiums in New England only got windows a couple of years ago. Until then, they propped up the plywood covers to keep the rain off them.
Funny stuff...
My high school football team played on rocky dirt field, next to a chemical plant that had a bluish- green lake behind it. One day, the lake caught fire and fire departments from five different towns were needed to get it out.
And that's the way it was and we LIKED IT!
Some of the best high-school football still gets played on mud fields in front of rickety old wooden stands in Western Pennsylvania.
That’s a lot of car washes and bake sales.
************************
The car washes and bake sales will go for the ancillary things. The property owners
will foot this bill of $748 million. But they are getting other things such as:
six new schools, comprehensive renovations to six existing schools as well as
several facilities expansions and campus improvements, all at a tax rate increase
around half a cent. The district is expecting 3,000 new students each year,
making it one of the area’s fastest-growing.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/katy/news/article/New-Katy-stadium-plan-revives-bond-battle-5706994.php
end snip
With this type growth they’ve got to do something and move fairly fast, imo.
Seems like there are too many people in Texas that care more about sports complexes than their kid’s academic success.
Friday Night Lights explained it well.
Have you ever walked through a Texas high school? The school my kids went to have labs with the latest and greatest instruments, technology out the wazoo, a top notch theater department and an AstroTurf sports field.
God bless Texas that they can afford the project; hopefully stadiums are not for soccer with English as a 2nd language.
Any district that can spend this type of money on sports does not need any federal aid or title 1 money.
With the end zone ending abruptly at a concrete wall.
No doubt. Some of the worst games I’ve seen were in fancy stadiums. Some of the best in crappy muddy fields behind high schools.
I read a book, I think “Friday Night Lights”, where the high school teams in Texas charter commercial jetliners to take them to road games.
The point is the amount of money being wasted on the football team, which helps only a small percentage of the student body.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.