tool name

Friday, Sep. 04, 2009

Extreme Makeover: Stadium edition

When Ty Pennington, host of ABC's "Extreme Makeover Home Edition," walks onto a job site and gets excited, he screams into a megaphone, "C'mon, people ..." When Merced Union High Schools District Superintendent Scott Scambray gets excited, he adjusts the knot in his tie.

Complete opposites.

Hardly a correlation.

Except, of course, in action and results.

Pennington builds mansions out of mole hills. Scambray and MUHSD hope to do the same with the district's subpar athletic facilities.

A snapshot of their progress can be found at area stadiums. Buhach Colony, Golden Valley and Merced have all received lighting, giving hope that one day every MUHSD school will have its own full-functioning stadium.

"Remember, it's not just Scott talking," he said. "I've been to the booster club meetings, and I've talked with the people in the community. This is what they want, and we're going to give it to them."

Golden Valley

Jon Betschart took one look at the fixer-upper and saw a dream home, property with value.

For years, the unfinished stadium at Golden Valley was a high school football afterthought, used mostly for practice, Pop Warner and Stone Ridge Christian football games.

Not anymore.

The owners are ready to become tenants. At least, part of the time.

One season after staging its first true home game, Golden Valley will up the ante, hosting three non-league games on Friday nights: vs. North Monterey County, Sept. 4; vs. Carmichael Jesuit, Sept. 18; and vs. Johansen, Sept. 25. It will play its remaining home games at Merced College.

"There's something about being able to walk out of your locker room and onto your field and having someone else come to your campus," Golden Valley principal Craig Chavez said.

"It establishes a different feel when you don't have to jump on a bus and go somewhere else."

It has taken some creative, cost-effective thinking by Chavez, Betschart and district administrators to make the stadium playable.

As currently assembled, with one block of seating atop a fieldhouse on the home side, Golden Valley's capacity is roughly 1,000, Chavez said.

To accommodate its visitors, the baseball and soccer bleachers will be repositioned along the visitor's sideline.

Additional bleachers, from other school sites, will be placed along the home side.

Makeshift concession stands will be erected, and portable bathrooms will augment the existing restrooms beneath the home stands.

Mechanical lifts will be raised to give the coaching staffs an aerial view.

Upwards of 9,600 square feet of new sod was put down, and a new scoreboard has been ordered.

It won't be a world-class facility, but it won't be a dust bowl, either.

Buhach Colony

If Kevin Swartwood didn't know any better, he would have sworn it was a fall Friday night.

At home. Not Falcon Field.

The overhead light against a midnight blue backdrop, combined with a rowdy cheer section, certainly gave the impression.

Alas, it wasn't a Buhach Colony home game. Technically, it wasn't even the fall season.

"There's really no timeline" for that dream, Swartwood said.

Not yet, anyway.

Buhach Colony recently held a midnight practice, celebrating the arrival of its stadium lighting.

The evening began with an address from Scambray to a throng of BC supporters, many of whom stayed for football under the stars.

"If you look around the area, at places like Chowchilla and Madera, Clovis and Fresno, everywhere you go high school teams are playing on their high school fields," Swartwood said.

"Our district and our superintendent have made a commitment, and it's pretty obvious. You see a good facility at Atwater High and lights at three other schools.

"You're seeing a different type of philosophy, and it's great."

Merced

Merced athletic director Scott Winton has visions of a first-class community stadium of the same ilk as Stockton Lincoln High.

"We're years away, but a big percentage of that cost was lights," Winton said.

Until then, the Merced athletic department will focus on the immediate gains of having a lit facility -- luxuries afforded to all MUHSD schools now:

Late practices. For the past four or five years, Merced has conducted its evening practices on the baseball field. That'll change this fall;

and night games for freshmen. Freshman football teams at all MUHSD sites will now play on Thursday evenings at 6 p.m.

"It's exciting for the kids," Winton said.

Somewhere, the biggest kid of them all, Scambray, is fidgeting with his tie.