Clear eyes, full hearts, and a $94 million Texas highschool stadium

Few cities signify the Texas ethos of Friday Night time Lights – and the large cash behind it – greater than the Dallas exurb of Prosper.

Spectators collect at a stadium with 12,000 seats, a two-story press field, fancy digs for school scouts and a 60-foot-wide video scoreboard – a venue that price about $50 million. These highschool soccer video games don’t at all times fill the seats, however a neighborhood hospital chain paid $2.5 million for the stadium’s naming rights anyway. It’s all for the glory of a bunch of youngsters.

When the stadium opened 4 years in the past, it was a state-of-the-art facility that underscored the area’s transformation from farmland to one of many fastest-growing districts in Texas.

However it might quickly simply be the second-most costly stadium within the Prosper Impartial College District. On Nov. 7, voters will take into account a whopping $2.8 billion bond bundle, together with $94 million for a brand new 8,000-seat venue that could possibly be the most costly in Texas historical past. It’s a part of the continued buildout from the red-hot development over the previous few years that gave Dallas the largest inhabitants improve of any metro space within the nation in 2022 as individuals flocked there for cheaper housing, decrease taxes and fast job development.

It’s resulting in the necessity for extra infrastructure, together with for sports activities and training, and a rush of debt issuance. Greater than 20 highschool soccer stadiums have opened within the state since 2020, in keeping with one database monitoring the tasks. College districts within the cities of Katy and McKinney just lately constructed $70 million complexes, and voters in La Porte, simply exterior of Houston, permitted $56 million for its Bulldogs in Could.

“The factor about our state is, on any given Friday evening, you’re going to have about 50 video games which have over 10,000 individuals,” stated Todd Dodge, a retired coach who received seven state highschool championships and noticed gamers equivalent to quarterback Sam Ehlinger go on to careers within the NFL. “That completely doesn’t occur in different states. That’s the mindset when college districts are passing bonds.”

The vote will likely be a check of the goodwill that exists for highschool soccer in Texas, the place 30 years in the past Buzz Bissinger wrote Friday Night time Lights, a chronicle of a staff in Odessa that spawned a film after which successful tv sequence (“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”). However there are indicators of a rising backlash to the proposals amid a torrent of newcomers from California, rising consciousness of traumatic mind accidents attributable to sports activities and rising stress over public training, significantly on the subject of social and cultural points.

Whereas there hasn’t been any polling on the proposal in Prosper, fiscal conservatives typically balk on the steep worth tags for stadiums. Schooling advocates generally fear that marquee athletic tasks detract from lecturers.

In 2019, the state legislature began requiring that bond measures for stadiums and different arenas with greater than 1,000 seats be damaged out individually from measures for educational buildings. Voters rejected a minimum of $460 million of stadium proposals within the November 2022 and Could 2023 elections and solely permitted some $330 million, in keeping with state knowledge.

“They simply haven’t been as profitable as they need to,” stated Ryan Gregory, a managing companion in Houston at PBK, an structure agency that makes a speciality of college tasks. He blames the shortage of assist partly on newcomers from different elements of the nation who could not have grown up with Texas soccer and have a unique perspective on the necessity for the amenities.

Small City Really feel

There are many newcomers in Prosper. Its inhabitants surged 25% from April 2020 via July 2022, in keeping with Census Bureau knowledge. 20 years in the past, the city didn’t also have a grocery retailer. Now, there’s virtually 40,000 individuals and a median family earnings of about $159,000.

Prosper ISD, which additionally encompasses elements of neighboring suburbs, enrolled 3,400 new college students final yr. In 2002, the college had 1,000 college students and three campuses. In 2023, it has 28,400 college students and 25 campuses.

“Prosper, and North Texas as an entire, is the fashionable day Rome,” stated Invoice Beavers, the president of the college board.

Texans have at all times beloved soccer, nevertheless it wasn’t at all times so costly. The venue that supplied the setting for Friday Night time Lights, the 18,000-seat Ratliff Stadium in Odessa, was constructed for $5.6 million in 1982, or about $18 million in in the present day’s {dollars}. Regardless of its relative age, it nonetheless makes it to the rankings of finest highschool soccer stadiums.

To maintain up with the competitors, it might quickly get a face-lift. In November, voters will take into account an $8 million bond measure for upgrades.

Texas Bob

Robert McSpadden, who runs a well-liked web site about Texas soccer the place he’s referred to as Texas Bob, says that ripping up grass and putting in turf is without doubt one of the hottest current traits, together with video boards that may present on the spot replays.

McSpadden tracks stadiums in different states as properly – there’s Mitchell Stadium in West Virginia, inbuilt 1936 and ranked as among the finest within the nation, and Union Tuttle Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which obtained a $36 million renovation in 2021. However, he says, the reverence for highschool soccer in Texas – and willingness to spend cash on it – is simply totally different.

“The tradition will not be the identical in different states,” he stated.

In Sherman, a metropolis of 45,000 about 70 miles north of Dallas, voters just lately permitted a $47 million bond measure for a brand new stadium. Financial development pushed by the semiconductor trade – GlobiTech Inc. was based there, and Texas Devices Inc. is constructing new vegetation – has underpinned sturdy income, which suggests there will likely be no tax improve tied to the bonds.

“Lots of instances these stadiums get a foul knock,” stated Tyson Bennett, superintendent of Sherman ISD. “They see it as Friday Night time Lights. There’s so many different pupil organizations that profit.”

Along with soccer, stadiums additionally present a showcase for the marching band, the drill staff and the homecoming king and queen. College students from the science membership can increase cash on sport days by plugging in a Crock-Pot and promoting Frito pies.

The fever for varsity districts to construct pricey stadiums and declare bragging rights for the nicest amenities appeared to get its begin in suburban Dallas with the Carroll college district, stated Alan Hargis, 67, who was attending a current sport to assist his son, the defensive coordinator for the Allen Excessive College soccer staff. Carroll’s Dragon Stadium in Southlake was inbuilt 2001 for lower than $20 million.

“That induced a shock again then,” Hargis stated.

Again in Prosper, skeptics level out that if the period of super-charged inhabitants development fades, current taxpayers will likely be on the hook for the massive bond measures, that are paid out over a long time.

“Do I consider in 100 million greenback stadium? Completely not,” stated Kyle Sims, 58, a retiree who lives in McKinney. “After I performed soccer, I performed on a grass subject with metallic bleachers and I didn’t have all the large display TVs and all that.”

College officers say the bond bundle merely displays the area’s development and the affect of inflation, which has made building costlier. They level out that there might be some 400 college students on the stadium on a Friday evening who’re collaborating in associated actions however aren’t soccer gamers. And the brand new stadium would have an eight-lane monitor and likewise host particular occasions.

Amy Gorgueiro, who served on a planning committee for the bond bundle, stated that as a Republican she hates debt, however acknowledges that the bond bundle is the one option to fund new college buildings. Her daughter used to carry out on the drill staff’s halftime present earlier than she graduated final yr.

“I see individuals questioning the necessity for an additional stadium – I get it,” Gorgueiro stated. “However the brand new stadium goes to be another choice for our children to be taught and develop, as a result of it’s not simply used for soccer.”

–With help from Thomas Black and David Wethe.