High school spends $6.6 million on football stadium renovations!

Westlake's dream house
Renovated stadium gives Chaps pricey home-field advantage


By Rick Cantu
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, September 6, 2002

Imagine a carpet so ragged that the dye sticks to your shoes. A home too small for expected guests. A toilet that backs up every Friday night. No television.

That was the old Chaparral Stadium.

This is the new one: the latest in artificial turf, about 4,000 extra seats, new lighting, a giant scoreboard and message center, and additional restrooms on both sides of the stadium.

It will be home for Westlake High School, one of the most accomplished programs in football-crazy Texas.

"I'm blown away," said senior tight end Joey Thomas. "It looks like a college stadium."

But it didn't come cheap.

The project cost about $6.6 million, approximately $2.2 million more than initially estimated. Some taxpayers in the Eanes Independent School District say they can ill afford to spend that much on football when the district has other pressing needs.

"It's just a shame that we are putting money into luxury athletic facilities at the same time teachers' working conditions don't support the learning environment we want for our children," said former Eanes Trustee Donna Howard.

The stadium's improvements — the first major renovation since the facility was built in 1969 — were made possible by a $67 million bond issue that was approved by voters in February 2001.

Major changes at Chaparral Stadium include:

• A playing surface called Astro Turf 12, a spongy green turf that is softer, thus easier on the knees, than the old artificial surface.

• A scoreboard and message center that will show player and team statistics and advertisements. Someday it might be used for instant replay.

• Seats added to both sides of the stadium. Seating capacity has been expanded from 6,000 to 10,352. There are 1,350 red seats with back support and cup holders on the home side.

• New lights that will be retained at the stadium, meaning they won't bleed into nearby neigborhoods. The old lights will be installed at the Westlake baseball field.

• New speakers on top the message center, and microphone sets for referees to let the lead official announce penalties to the fans.

• More restrooms. Instead of having one set of restrooms on each side, there will be three. Portable restrooms no longer will be needed on the visitors' side.

• An 18-acre parking lot that will help alleviate space problems near the visitors' side.

• A new pressbox with an elevator.

Brad Shields, an Eanes school board memberand 10-year public address announcer at Westlake games, said the improvements were overdue.

"We have been sensitive to spending money for athletic facilities," Shields said. "The stadium was in terrible condition, and I'm not saying it's the Taj Mahal today."

Cost overruns


How much is too much?

Did the football stadium really need a 10-by-15-foot scoreboard and message center and new lights?

Howard said the stadium needed to be renovated, but the district went too far.

The original budget for the stadium complex was about $4.4 million, said Eanes district business manager Bob Jocius.

Jocius said the increase stems from items not in the original budget, such as extra seating, the message center, new lights and poles, pressbox expansion, new seats and restrooms. There will be 47 toilets at the stadium, 30 more than in previous seasons.

Eanes Superintendent Jess Butler said the extra costs will not affect future school projects. The district is using interest from unspent bonds, and plans were made for inflation and contingency costs, he said.

The district has one high school, two middle schools and six elementary schools.

"We have schools that don't have playgrounds," said Kim Oswald, a mother of two children at Westlake. "The priority was putting the football field together."

School officials said delays in building playgrounds have nothing to do with the cost of the stadium, but were caused by delays in getting building permits.

Proponents of the improvements concede that an oversized scoreboard and the JumboTron-like message center — officially called a Daktronics Integrated Scoring, Video-Sound, Message Center — is extravagant, but will pay for itself.

The message center cost $400,000, and it has two panels that will be used for advertising. The goal is to generate $100,000 from ads on the panels and the scoreboard each season. District officials said no ads have been sold yet.

Shields said the idea of getting the message board started when the Waco Independent School District received one valued at $350,000 as a gift from Coca Cola two years ago.

The Daktronics message board in Waco is part of a $13 million stadium built in the city two years ago. Waco Athletic Director Jack Moss said the University of Nebraska football team accidentally drove to the stadium last fall and figured it was at Baylor University's home field, Floyd Casey Stadium.

Waco's experience


The stadium in Waco has become a regular site for high school playoff games the past two years. Advertising on the message board and nearby marquee is worth $94,000 annually. The rotating panels — there are nine in all — bring in about $67,500 a year. An additional $26,500 comes from two permanent signs at the front of the stadium.

"I'm a little biased, but I think we have the best high school football stadium in the state," Moss said.

Other cities with new scoreboards and message boards include Mesquite, Galena Park and Laredo. The Birdville district has one that is used by Haltom City and Richland Hills. Moss said the Waco stadium was used by various organizations 226 days last year.

Shields hopes Westlake duplicates Waco's success.

Judging by early ticket sales, Westlake is off to a good start. Some 3,430 people have purchased season tickets, about 1,000 more than previous years. Fans must pay between $15 and $50 for seat options to maintain their tickets.

The expanded stadium will help allure big-name teams to Westlake, football coach Ron Schroeder said. He said teams such as perennial powerhouse Converse Judson have declined offers to play at old Chaparral Stadium because there were not enough seats for their fans.

"Whenever we play a San Antonio school it's always been in San Antonio," Schroeder said. "For 15 years I've been driving to San Antonio."

Schroeder led the Chaps to the state championship in 1996. The team is ranked No. 1 in the state despite not having played its first game.

Schroeder said he has been too busy preparing his team for tonight's game to be too concerned with the stadium improvements. He has good reason: Westwood, tonight's foe, upset Westlake last season.

The coach's favorite part of the stadium, though, is the new turf. He had to wash his shoes and socks daily when the old turf was down because the green dye rubbed off too easily.

"The old stadium was an embarrassment," Schroeder said. "Anyone who is fair realizes how poor our old stadium was."




Well, it is Westlake... but still, couldn't $6.6 million be spent in a manner that is more beneficial to the education of the entire student body?