Published: August 12, 2006 11:47 pm      

Admiring football monuments in Texas

I went out to Northwest High School yesterday to buy my season tickets for this fall’s football stadium. The athletic department secretary took me out into the stadium to pick out a seat. That’s when it dawned on me. High school football has come a long way since I played.

Northwest High’s stadium is a year old and was built by the same folks building the new Tiger Stadium. I don’t know when I’ll get to see the new CHS facility, but I think I got a pretty good preview yesterday.

It’s an impressive structure from the road. From field level it’s unbelievable. Looking past the goal posts onto the artificial turf was enough to give me chills, not an easy thing to do when it’s 103 outside. And, I must admit, it’s much nicer turf than that on my patio.

Turf in a high school stadium? I can still remember playing in Joshua in the last century where, after every play, you had to pick the goat heads out of your hands. I can remember playing in Desoto after a rain when that clay balled up on your shoes so bad, getting back to the huddle was a chore. Forget about taking a pitch and turning the corner.

One year at our old stadium in Midlothian, the coach read somewhere that cotton hulls were good for the grass. For a week, every P.E. class rode out to the field to spread cotton hulls. Guess what? That September we had cotton hulls hiding beneath the grass. Ouch.

I walked to mid-field to check out the seats available. She offered to let me go up to check the view from different seats, but unless there had been a cold front coming through at that very moment, I figured I would decline.

I chose two seats right on the 50 yard line on row P. That doesn’t sound too bad. Except that when you figure that the reserved seats are above the student seats. I’m guessing that row P is probably about 50 feet higher than the press box at old Tiger Field. I hope I can find my binoculars.

My high school stadium would have held the band section of this place. Quinlan Stadium, where I once coached, only had room for about 100 fans on the visitor’s side, the Ag feed lot directly behind them, and the Ag teacher’s dog pen within kicking distance of the south goal post.

The press box must be four stories high. The first time I was ever in the press box at Tiger Field, I was within spitting distance of the John Tyler Band. Big Bad John was indelibly etched on my brain after four quarters. But, hey, it wasn’t the worst.

At Copperas Cove one night, we had to sit on top of the press box to scout. In Ennis, we wound up in the second row inside the press box trying to look through glass that hadn’t been washed since the Truman administration.

It’s not just Corsicana and Northwest. Midlothian will be in a new stadium this fall that is in the same category. Mansfield’s new stadium will be open in September if they ever get the turf right (the contractor ordered the wrong turf, fake St. Augustine instead of fake Bermuda). They are sprouting up like mushrooms but each nicer than the one before.

I wish I could be there to see the opening night. I’m sure Sam Thompson will be hanging around beaming like he did when that first grandkid hit the ground. I’m sure it will change the look of everything.

Up here, the new stadium sits right next to the old one. The contrast is clear. Old Texan Stadium is unchanged since it was built in the late ‘50s. The two can be viewed side by side. It’s like putting a Lamborghini up next to Gene Bullard’s old red pickup. Somebody email me a picture. No, not of Bullard’s old truck, the new Tiger Field.