Our graduating class walks and some of our football games are played at a stadium named after the same guy as our school, but it’s on the Universtiy of Pacifc’s campus. We are one of the few high school that gets to play in a college stadium for football games, but its not on our campus. For decades “Stagg” has been the name of a school and a stadium. The problem has been, however, that the stadium isn’t on our campus.

There have been drafts of Stagg having its own stadium, but ground hasn’t broken yet. So far the designs that have been drawn up estimate the cost of building the stadium to $15 million. The plan for financing is to put the stadium into a bond in this November or February ballot.

Newly appointed District Athletic Director Joe Martin has many plans for making athletics in Stockton Unified School District better. Martin, Don Norton and Andre Phillips recently traveled to Texas to see examples of what is the better choices between turfs and other factors.

There are two types of turf. One type is mondo, where it is 10-15 degrees hotter than the outside air. The other type is field turf, where it is 35-40 degrees hotter than the outside air. The football team has played on a field turf in Roseville where the outside air temperature was about 100 degrees, but on the field it was 140 degrees and the athletes were getting overheated and cleats were melting.

“Texas has a combination of education and athletics,” Martin said.

Norton saw how different football in California is different form football in Texas. Martin, Norton and Phillips visited Midland High and Perman High, where each varsity teams have 150 students and 350 students in the program total.

“This is a one shot deal to pass,” Norton said. “(If it does) it would be the best football and track facility in this area.”