April's Up In Smoke Column for Riverdale's "Smoke Signal" --

If you are reading this, but don’t know what this column is about, I’ll clear things up. I’m Anthony “Tony” Harrell, and this is the first of many regular opinion columns. I’m very opinionated, and my fiery believes usually end up making someone, whether the reader or myself, “burned” in one way or another; hence the name. Hopefully I can keep from turning away too many readers in my first column; I’ve got plenty more columns to do that in!
The main thing that demands my attention right now seems slightly minor, overshadowed by bigger topics. However, it is an important topic itself: the debate over the new Eagleville Stadium. Eagleville High School has applied for a stadium, and it has been approved. Therefore, a $900,000 multi-purpose stadium will be built for the school. Now I am personally for all schools having a stadium, but this seems slightly ridiculous. A school with about 250 students is approved for a nine hundred grand stadium. Now, one thing needs to be put into perspective first and foremost. Typically, stadiums (such as Tomahawk Stadium or the similar stadiums at Blackman or Oakland) are principally used for football games and the corresponding halftime band productions. Other times, the stadium is used by the track team. Now Eagleville gets a new stadium to showcase their talents in those three fields. Oops; I forgot something: they don’t have a football team, marching band, or a track team. Does anyone else see a problem here?
Now, the school should attempt to develop such programs, then apply for their suitable stadium afterwards, in my opinion. Before we had our stadium, the Warriors had the practice field, and played home games at Floyd Stadium. Surely the Eagles, if really interested in making such programs, could do similar things in order to show that they have a need for a stadium rather than just a want. Also, they should receive a stadium that suits their needs. Schools with around two thousand students, including Murfreesboro’s infamous three, have stadiums that seat around five thousand. I don’t know how many the Eagleville Stadium will be able to hold, but it should be proportionately smaller, taking into account attendance for other events as well -- after all, this is a multi-purpose building.
My take on the whole issue is that it is with good intentions, just not done correctly. Let them develop some programs and collect some data, then build the stadium accordingly. However, I am not in charge, so the nearly one million dollars goes out of the budget and into building this improvement, despite the horrible shape the budget is in already. Oh well; at least the Eaglevillians, and Tennesseeans in general, can have a great facility for the infamous Tractor Show!
Questions? Comments? Hate mail? Send your thoughts to RHSupinsmoke@hotmail.com, and be sure to check out the developmental Digital version of Up In Smoke, online at http://upinsmoke.blogspot.com.

posted by Anthony D. Harrell at 4:45 PM