Behold, beautiful Eagle Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas. It cost $60 million to build and has proudly hosted high school football ($60 million worth of high school football) for an astonishing 18 MONTHS. Now it’s being closed. Did everybody get their money’s worth?
Via ESPN:
Eagle Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Allen will be closed until at least June for an examination of “extensive cracking” in the concrete of the stadium’s concourse, the district said in a statement Thursday. The closure will likely affect home games at the stadium this fall, the district said.
Eagle Stadium, which seats 18,000 people and sports a 38-foot-wide video board, will be closed indefinitely due to extensive cracking in Allen, Texas.
Ben Pogue of Pogue Construction, which built the stadium, told reporters that the cracks range from a quarter-inch to three-quarters of an inch wide.“There are concerns surrounding the stadium, but we have been — for a long time — part of the solution,” Pogue said, according to the Dallas Morning News. “I’m optimistic that we’re going to have a quick resolve to this that will not affect the football season that’s coming up.”
There you have it, folks, a community paid $60 million to build a high school football stadium and it had to be shut down in under two years because none of that $60 million was put toward MAKING THE BUILDING STAND UP or hiring someone who could say “hey, don’t use garbage concrete or it’ll probably collapse and kill everyone.” It’s especially maddening to me as a kid who went to high school and played football on a $60 field that was essentially a rectangular mudpit with some bleachers in the middle of an old people jogging track.
Looking on the bright side, this is probably the best-case scenario for a “football stadium closed because of crack” headline.
“Our No. 1 priority must always be the safety of our students, staff and community,” Louise Master, Allen’s ISD board president, said in a release.
If I could suggest a solution, $40 million more for hard hats.
