While we’re on the subject of football stadiums, let me take a walk down memory lane.
My daughter Jenny attended Denison University, a classic liberal arts college nestled on a bluff overlooking a small town in Ohio. In her freshman year, during a parent’s weekend visit, I took in a Big Red football game.
Denison’s is decidedly not a football school, and Piper Stadium testifies to that.
It is a modest affair – a line of low bleachers on either side of a gridiron circled by a running track.
And it really hasn’t changed much since Woody Hayes played there as a student in the 1930s. And then coached there before decamping for Ohio State.
Hardly Gator Country. More like the patch of green my South Broward High Bulldogs played on.
No sky boxes for Big Red.
And as far as I could tell, not being a football school didn’t impact the quality of a Denison education one wit.
I write this not to, once again, shame UF for the billion-plus dollars it will spend to transform Ben Hill Griffin into a football pleasure dome. Been there, done that.
No, I’d rather talk about the Alachua County School Board’s football stadium dilemma.
Three high schools – Gainesville, East Side and Buchholz – have for decades taken turns playing under Friday night lights at the City owned Citizens Field.
Although not nearly as old as Denison’s field, Citizens is in terrible shape, subject to flooding and otherwise deemed unsuitable to safely support many more games.
The City wants to sell Citizens to the School Board in a deal that would see a new stadium built at the same location.
But this week board members rejected the deal.
And I can’t blame em.
“The rejected contract would have had the district purchase the stadium from the city for $500,000, with additional infrastructure costs of about $5 million and estimated stadium construction costs between $22 and $25 million,” The Sun reported.
Half a million dollars here. A million more there. And then upwards of $25 million for a new stadium?
Pretty soon you’re talking real money.
So the board will instead explore other options. Maybe build less expensive fields at each high school. Or perhaps a new shared stadium somewhere else.
Heck, the district has lots of spare land to tap, following its latest round of school closures and in view of continuing enrollment losses.
But before any of those or other options come to fruition, perhaps school board members need to step back.
And, you know, look at the bigger picture.
School districts are losing enrollment, closing schools and laying off faculty and staff precisely because our GOP-controlled state government is years into a calculated blueprint to dismantle public education…by diverting as much state funding as possible to charter and private schools.
Because, you know, choice.
The really bad news is that this politically-driven scheme to privatize public education may likely be unstoppable.
Oh, and here’s a fun fact.
There are thousands of pages of state statute mandating what public schools must teach and how they must teach it.
But so far as I determine, the state does not require high schools to teach football.
Actually, there are a lot of high schools in Florida that do not teach football.
Mostly they are charter or private schools now getting state money that previously went to public schools. And they don’t see the sense of getting into such an expensive sport.
I like to watch football as much as anybody. But the more we learn about the sport the more we realize it is a brutal form of mass entertainment that is particularly abusive on young bodies.
We are entering an era when “business as usual” is no longer an option in public education. Board members, if they’re doing their jobs, will have to examine virtually everything our schools do and how they do it.
And whether some of those things still ought to be done.
They may even need to consider if it makes more sense to lay off an entire football coaching staff…or an equivalent number of English, algebra and math teachers.
Never mind whether it’s worth laying out $25 million to keep high school football afloat.
Listen, if the community at large wants high school football to continue, let the community provide.
If city and county commissioners love the idea of Friday night lights, both local governments have Public Spaces dollars at their disposal.
Hell, maybe the UF Athletic Association – apparently flush with cash – will come to the rescue and build a new field for its host community’s high schools.
I’ve previously commented on the obscenity of UF spending $1-plus billion to pimp up Ben Hill Griffin.
Is it any less indecent to commit millions of dollars to high school football while closing schools and laying off teachers?
I think not.
Plus, elected school board members have the best excuse possible for getting out of the football teaching business.
The Florida Legislature made us do it.
FreeGNV 