TX high school will build $62M football palace 4 miles away from rival’s $60M football shrine

[antigop]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/texas-high-school-will-build-62m-football-palace-4-miles-away-from-rivals-60m-football-shrine/

Massive budget cuts to Texas schools in 2011 are still having ripple effects throughout the school system in the state, but apparently not in McKinney, Texas where a new $62.8 million stadium project passed with 63 percent of the vote on Monday.

Texas schools may have been forced to increase class sizes, cut bus routes, fire teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses and more staff, but when it comes to high school football, they’re willing to raise taxes, according to CBS Sports.

The new stadium is expected to come in right at $50.3 million but there is an additional $12.5 million needed for roads, sewage and other infrastructure associated with the building itself. But compared to the $1.15 billion they spent on the Dallas Cowboy’s stadium in 2009, $62.8 million is just pocket change.

The new 12,000 person structure will be just four miles from Eagle Stadium in Allen, Texas, which was the previous home of the most expensive high school football stadium in the country at $60 million.

[oldandhappy]

1. anything for tornado cellars??!!

[underpants]

2. Getting Texas and Florida football players thru the NCAA clearinghouse is a problem

I've heard this mentioned briefly on sports radio so I checked it out with someone thick into college athletics. I just happen to know this person. They confirmed that getting high schoolers from Texas and Florida cleared academically is a real pain. Many programs that recruit heavily in those states have at least one person on staff to do nothing but that. Their schools are just that bad BUT both are rich in football talent.

[TexasProgresive]

5. You got that right

I know middle and high school kids who are very bright but totally unchallenged by the "academics" in school. It is all about sports; football, basketball, soccer, tennis, track & field, volley ball top the lists of what's important. Academics are running as also ran. When these kids enter university they are stunned that they have to put their noses to an incredible grindstone of hard study. That's unless they are legacy kids at their parents school.

[CanonRay]

3. What a total waste of money

and I am a football fan.

[BigMin28]

4. BTW

That stadium just down the road in Allen Texas that cost 60 million to build was unusable for a couple years due to significant structural defects. It cost 10 million to repair. It was built in 2012. They couldn't use it until graduation ceremonies in 2015.

[cloudbase]

6. These things are built with bond money approved through

an election within the school district.

Bond money cannot be used to pay teacher or support staff salaries.

I recall a conversation with our school district superintendent some years ago, and he pretty much equated the stadium construction
binge as akin to dick swinging between districts.

[radicalliberal]

7. To make sense of it all, just think of the stadiums as pagan temples.

After all, hardcore fandom (as opposed to random interest) is a form of worship.

Surely, we all must realize now that the primary purpose of a high school is to have a winning football team. At all costs.

Academics is a mere add-on. How much support and recognition do high school students receive who participate in academic decathlons? Nah, that's not important. They're just a bunch of nerds.

[hobbit709]

8. Actual education be damned.