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I spent a fall in Dallas Texas and worked with someone who had tickets to Allen HS football.  He took me to a game and it was unbelievable.  700 kids in the Marching band.  At halftime there was a kid standing on each yard marker from goal line to goal line and there was 7 rows of them from sideline to sideline.

The cheerleaders, dance squad etc. brought at least 1,000 kids into the event as participants plus the 75-100 kids in uniform.  It was a College Football game for a kid from New England. 

But what totally blew me away was the playoffs at Jerry's place.  45,000 people to watch two HS teams play football.

That was a college football game both on the field and in the stands.

But I couldn't help but wonder - for most of those kids on the field that might end up being the highlight of their life.  Not sure that is a healthy result.

luv baseball posted:

I spent a fall in Dallas Texas and worked with someone who had tickets to Allen HS football.  He took me to a game and it was unbelievable.  700 kids in the Marching band.  At halftime there was a kid standing on each yard marker from goal line to goal line and there was 7 rows of them from sideline to sideline.

The cheerleaders, dance squad etc. brought at least 1,000 kids into the event as participants plus the 75-100 kids in uniform.  It was a College Football game for a kid from New England. 

But what totally blew me away was the playoffs at Jerry's place.  45,000 people to watch two HS teams play football.

That was a college football game both on the field and in the stands.

But I couldn't help but wonder - for most of those kids on the field that might end up being the highlight of their life.  Not sure that is a healthy result.

So, you're saying that "Varsity Blues" was more akin to a documentary!!!!!   (Still love that movie)

Texas HS football playoffs were held at Cowboy Stadium in Irving for decades before Jones built the new stadium in Arlington. Yep, football is big business! 

Baseball playoffs are at Dell Diamond, home of Round Rock Express, Texas Rangers AAA affiliate. Some quarter finals are at Frisco Rough Riders, Rangers AA affiliate...

Heels - It was.  The entire experience was mind blowing to me.  The Allen HS is huge - about 1,600 kids per class or 4,800 total for years 10-12.  That means each class at that school would qualify to be in the largest divisions in Virginia where I live now.

I did enjoy Varsity Blues as well.  I was with Billy Bob and would've have liked to go to the Prom with Ms. Davis. 

 

used to live in that part of TX.  Frisco to be exact.  I've seen the Allen, TX stadium but have not been to a game there.  It seems that the towns in the area are all competing for the best stadium.  Frisco, Tx has pretty much trumped them all.  This quietly snuck through with out much press outside the area.  But Frisco has reached an agreement with the Cowboys to build their new practice facility in Frisco.  It also doubles as the 2nd football stadium in the city.  The other stadium being Toyota Park with a seating capacity of 20,000.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news...r-august-opening.ece

 

joes87 posted:

used to live in that part of TX.  Frisco to be exact.  I've seen the Allen, TX stadium but have not been to a game there.  It seems that the towns in the area are all competing for the best stadium.  Frisco, Tx has pretty much trumped them all.  This quietly snuck through with out much press outside the area.  But Frisco has reached an agreement with the Cowboys to build their new practice facility in Frisco.  It also doubles as the 2nd football stadium in the city.  The other stadium being Toyota Park with a seating capacity of 20,000.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news...r-august-opening.ece

 

Yep, 12k seat DOME for high school football. I believe it becomes stadium #3 for the district? And they'll probably need to build another one in a few years. Frisco ISD will have 8 full high schools plus a freshmen-only school next year I believe. In the next five years they plan to have 12 full high schools, each with around 1800 students I think... 

Should I assume the school district's building these stadiums have all top students because they have the best, highest paid teachers and best educational facilities?  And all the special needs students needs are met?

How can Allen High School only be the 115th academically ranked high school in Texas? How can only 68% of the students be proficient in Math. With the money this school throws around they should be #1.

Dont tell me I don't understand Texas football. It's nothing more than a case of warped priorities.

RJM posted:

Should I assume the school district's building these stadiums have all top students because they have the best, highest paid teachers and best educational facilities?  And all the special needs students needs are met?

How can Allen High School only be the 115th academically ranked high school in Texas? How can only 68% of the students be proficient in Math. With the money this school throws around they should be #1.

Dont tell me I don't understand Texas football. It's nothing more than a case of warped priorities.

At least in texas they are called high schools, not "high" schools.  

And with nearly 2000 high schools in tx, that puts Allen in the top 6% academically.

RJM posted:

Should I assume the school district's building these stadiums have all top students because they have the best, highest paid teachers and best educational facilities?  And all the special needs students needs are met?

How can Allen High School only be the 115th academically ranked high school in Texas? How can only 68% of the students be proficient in Math. With the money this school throws around they should be #1.

Dont tell me I don't understand Texas football. It's nothing more than a case of warped priorities.

Gotta remember, somebody has to make the top look good. In a school as big as Allen, you have to expect there to be some bad students. Look, $60 million for a high school football stadium is nuts. I think most would agree. They also built a $60 million fine arts facility at the same time. Equally nuts? 

I do believe that academics are very important. But at the same time, I think the academics have gotten out of hand. To me, it's a problem when kids are graduating from high school and are "juniors" in college, due to the number of credits they have already. That's equally disturbing IMO. 

If Math proficiency is at 68% that's where the money should be going. Math  skills are going to do more for a student over the course of his life than watching a football game in a posh high school stadium. Most of the kids in the high school won't be on the field. 

This stadium is nothing but a chest pounder for the school district. They should elevate math proficiency first and pound their chest about that. 68% proficiency is an embarrassment.

 

luv baseball posted:

But I couldn't help but wonder - for most of those kids on the field that might end up being the highlight of their life.  Not sure that is a healthy result.

Earlier this year I read an article in SI on the 25th Anniversary of the book Friday Night Light's.  There were 3 players that went on to play college football and all of them quit citing that it was not the same as when they were at Permian. 

FoxDad posted:

I know it's not baseball, but still $50 million for a 12,000 seat football stadium is a lot of $$$$$....even for Texas.

http://usatodayhss.com/2016/ch...all-stadium-in-texas

By comparison the local HS only spent $3.8 million on a 2,000 seat stadium (artificial turf).

 

Only 3.8 million huh....can someone fund-raise the money to get my kids high school baseball field to have bathrooms?  Port-o-potties in the parking lot are just soooo last year!

Truman posted:

$50 million sounds like peanuts compared to a $1.3 Billion stadium that seats 68,500.  

It's all about priorities, huh?  

I take issue with a school district spending this kind of money on a sport when it should be spent on education. As far as pro sports stadiums I'm against public funding to build stadiums for billionaires to make them richer. Let them build their own stadiums. Let them get richer on their own. It's public money that could be used for far better purposes.

Gillette Stadium (Patriots) was privately funded. Robert Kraft doesn't seem to be worse off for putting up the money. TD Garden (Bruins/Celtics) is also privately owed. The Jacobs family (Bruins) are still quite wealthy. Cities need to start putting their foot down and refusing to build billion dollar stadiums. It's welfare for the wealthy.

RJM posted:
Truman posted:

$50 million sounds like peanuts compared to a $1.3 Billion stadium that seats 68,500.  

It's all about priorities, huh?  

I take issue with a school district spending this kind of money on a sport when it should be spent on education. As far as pro sports stadiums I'm against public funding to build stadiums for billionaires to make them richer. Let them build their own stadiums. Let them get richer on their own. It's public money that could be used for far better purposes.

Gillette Stadium (Patriots) was privately funded. Robert Kraft doesn't seem to be worse off for putting up the money. TD Garden (Bruins/Celtics) is also privately owed. The Jacobs family (Bruins) are still quite wealthy. Cities need to start putting their foot down and refusing to build billion dollar stadiums. It's welfare for the wealthy.

The entire societal focus on "sports is really important" is out of whack.  Kinda like the Romans, coliseums and eventual collapse of western civilization into the dark ages.

Just kidding.  I've got a petition going to TABC to let beer be served at the games.  If I'm going to sit in a $50M stadium, mize well have a cold one!  

CaCO3Girl posted:
FoxDad posted:

I know it's not baseball, but still $50 million for a 12,000 seat football stadium is a lot of $$$$$....even for Texas.

http://usatodayhss.com/2016/ch...all-stadium-in-texas

By comparison the local HS only spent $3.8 million on a 2,000 seat stadium (artificial turf).

 

Only 3.8 million huh....can someone fund-raise the money to get my kids high school baseball field to have bathrooms?  Port-o-potties in the parking lot are just soooo last year!

It was built from funds left over from building the new HS in 2009.  The new stadium was built three years after the new school was completed.  Funny how they had those funds, but couldn't spend the extra $5K or so to install irrigation for the baseball field when it was built.    The booster club ended up funding the irrigation that was installed two years ago.

RJM posted:
Truman posted:

$50 million sounds like peanuts compared to a $1.3 Billion stadium that seats 68,500.  

It's all about priorities, huh?  

I take issue with a school district spending this kind of money on a sport when it should be spent on education. As far as pro sports stadiums I'm against public funding to build stadiums for billionaires to make them richer. Let them build their own stadiums. Let them get richer on their own. It's public money that could be used for far better purposes.

Gillette Stadium (Patriots) was privately funded. Robert Kraft doesn't seem to be worse off for putting up the money. TD Garden (Bruins/Celtics) is also privately owed. The Jacobs family (Bruins) are still quite wealthy. Cities need to start putting their foot down and refusing to build billion dollar stadiums. It's welfare for the wealthy.

I dunno, RJM....  The frontrunner in the Republican primaries "loves the poorly educated."  And he probably also loves the welfare for the wealthy.

 

MomLW posted:
RJM posted:
Truman posted:

$50 million sounds like peanuts compared to a $1.3 Billion stadium that seats 68,500.  

It's all about priorities, huh?  

I take issue with a school district spending this kind of money on a sport when it should be spent on education. As far as pro sports stadiums I'm against public funding to build stadiums for billionaires to make them richer. Let them build their own stadiums. Let them get richer on their own. It's public money that could be used for far better purposes.

Gillette Stadium (Patriots) was privately funded. Robert Kraft doesn't seem to be worse off for putting up the money. TD Garden (Bruins/Celtics) is also privately owed. The Jacobs family (Bruins) are still quite wealthy. Cities need to start putting their foot down and refusing to build billion dollar stadiums. It's welfare for the wealthy.

I dunno, RJM....  The frontrunner in the Republican primaries "loves the poorly educated."  And he probably also loves the welfare for the wealthy.

 

The surgeon general has determined discussing Trump could be hazardous to the discussion board's health. 

His supporters are fanatics. I was discussing Trump at lunch with a friend. A lady must not have liked the facts we were discussing. She smacked me in the head with her purse. I wasn't even looking. It was a sucker punch with her purse. She must have had bricks in her purse.

RJM posted:

Should I assume the school district's building these stadiums have all top students because they have the best, highest paid teachers and best educational facilities?  And all the special needs students needs are met?

How can Allen High School only be the 115th academically ranked high school in Texas? How can only 68% of the students be proficient in Math. With the money this school throws around they should be #1.

Dont tell me I don't understand Texas football. It's nothing more than a case of warped priorities.

Should take all that money and throw it at education.  That's ALWAYS worked.  

THat school has tons of money and still produces a poor educational product.  More money is not the answer.   

Teacher's unions believe more money is the answer. But schools have technology running out of the ears.  Computers for students.  Smart boards.  Integrated technology. Websites. Cahoot study groups. Huge modern buildings, well paid staff. Yet still some of my son's teachers are just bad and the district can't do anything about them. This happens in Texas too. 

As I recall when the Allen stadium was built the sugar pill around it was that it was part of a larger bond issue to build more schools and facilities.  The football stadium was one on the list and not the biggest ticket.

If I read the McKinney thing right it is the same strategy - $200MM in bonds for a list of stuff including a big stadium.  In some of these districts I think it is a shared facility so there is additional rationale being pumped that if we built 5 smaller deals the cost would be equal or higher than one honking big one.

At least on these deals there is usually a referendum - so if the voters buy it then it is their money, who am I to tell them they are wrong or fools?  I'd agree that it would be galling if the taxpayers did not have a direct say on these things.

 

Teaching Elder posted:
RJM posted:

Should I assume the school district's building these stadiums have all top students because they have the best, highest paid teachers and best educational facilities?  And all the special needs students needs are met?

How can Allen High School only be the 115th academically ranked high school in Texas? How can only 68% of the students be proficient in Math. With the money this school throws around they should be #1.

Dont tell me I don't understand Texas football. It's nothing more than a case of warped priorities.

Should take all that money and throw it at education.  That's ALWAYS worked.  

THat school has tons of money and still produces a poor educational product.  More money is not the answer.   

Teacher's unions believe more money is the answer. But schools have technology running out of the ears.  Computers for students.  Smart boards.  Integrated technology. Websites. Cahoot study groups. Huge modern buildings, well paid staff. Yet still some of my son's teachers are just bad and the district can't do anything about them. This happens in Texas too. 

Money spent properly is the answer. Schools are spending more and producing less. The reason is the spending isn't going towards teaching and teaching aids. It's going to administration. The ratio of teachers to administrators has change drastically over the years.

Heres a wild idea. Spend what is needed wisely and cut taxes. But we're getting off topic. There's nothing in my mind that validates $50M on a football stadium unless they can show ROI in 5-7 years.

Last edited by RJM

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