D-2 Championship, McKinney, Texas

[BelgradeBobcat]

Ferris State blows out undefeated Valdosta State in the D-2 final yesterday. We saw how good Ferris was last year when they almost knocked off the griz in Missoula.

The game was at McKinney Independent School District (ISD) Stadium which is just next door to Frisco. The listed attendance was 3,228 which is disappointing. It looked like a really nice day. The semi-finals were just last week so D-2 doesn't give their fans any extra time to arrange for travel. Ferris (Michigan) and Valdosta (Georgia) are a long ways from McKinney.

The game is in a high school stadium, but this is no ordinary facility. It's home to three local high schools. It's almost obscene. How do they fund stuff like this?

[BobcatDel]

Ferris State blows out undefeated Valdosta State in the D-2 final yesterday. We saw how good Ferris was last year when they almost knocked off the griz in Missoula.

The game was at McKinney Independent School District (ISD) Stadium which is just next door to Frisco. The listed attendance was 3,228 which is disappointing. It looked like a really nice day. The semi-finals were just last week so D-2 doesn't give their fans any extra time to arrange for travel. Ferris (Michigan) and Valdosta (Georgia) are a long ways from McKinney.

The game is in a high school stadium, but this is no ordinary facility. It's home to three local high schools. It's almost obscene. How do they fund stuff like this?

Well I mentioned in a post several years back this was something for the valley to consider someday if we grew to 4 or 5 AA schools..... not a $70mm palace but a nice facility to host multiple high schools. I lived in the Houston area on three different time frames during my career and the school district our kids went to had 9 high schools in it... each high school was over 3000 students, most bigger than any AA school in Montana. They only had two high school stadiums that accommodated all 9 schools. One stadium was a little smaller and had a very nice track facility associated with it. The other stadium seated close to 50,000, was first class and had a large indoor venue adjacent to it that accommodated proms, graduations, etc. for all nine schools.

My observations on how the nice facilities were built was first you can do a lot if you consolidate tax resources from multiple schools to build common facilities that are used jointly and can build to a higher level than if each school tried to build their own. Second, when I lived in Texas, the share of property taxes intended for school was paid directly to the school districts and not to the general fund (which has both pros and cons but basically kept politicians from stealing from the school funding programs....and I know "heavens to betsy" politicians would never take money from a pot of money for other pet projects). Third what I observed in some of the wealthier communities that had substantial industry associated nearby, I observed some of the folks making pretty sizable contributions towards the school districts to support such structures because it contributed to better schools for their employees...... local oil or gas producing companies, large wind farms, chemical plants, manufacturing facilities, etc. You may not like industry supporting such causes but it surely did help build better facilities.

I guess I am also reminded that when South Dakota State was rebuilding their stadium, local high schools made several million dollar contributions so that the high schools could play on the university field and host band competitions, etc.

Finally, football is king in Texas. Friday Night Lights are the real deal when I was there.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Meanwhile in Montana's largest school district: https://www.kulr8.com/news/billlings-pu ... 8d381.html