Everything is big in Texas, especially high school football. Allen High School has an enrollment of 5,049 students in grades nine through 12, which it makes it hard for fans to buy tickets to football games because the students buy them up. So since this is Texas, the district will build an 18,000-seat stadium set to open in 2012...
Everything is big in Texas, especially high school football. Allen High School has an enrollment of 5,049 students in grades nine through 12, which it makes it hard for fans to buy tickets to football games because the students buy them up.
So since this is Texas, the district will build an 18,000-seat stadium set to open in 2012 with a $59.6 million price tag.
That ties it for the fifth-largest high school stadium in the state. The school's current stadium, built in 1976, has 7,000 seats.
"That's Texas for you," said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., education think tank. "This is, of course, ridiculous in a period of tight money, and the explanation will be that this is dedicated money and can't be spent on other things. … But I'm not a bit surprised. If it were Indiana, it would be a basketball arena.
"I don't think it's the arms race exactly. I think it's more of satisfying the community, almost an amenity like a community center. It's not a bad thing to do, but it's a very, very weird time to do it."