With the first football game of the season less than a week away, voters within the Adna School District are pondering just where their hometown team will be playing its home games in the not-so-distant future.
The district has placed a $7.2 million construction bond on the ballot for the election that concludes Sept. 19, aimed at adding educational space to both the elementary school and the middle-high school. The bond also proposes an additional gymnasium for the middle-high school and a new football stadium.
The construction of a new football stadium, complete with a track and field facility, would tally just under $2.2 million of the grand total. It would be built adjacent to the high school wing of the school. Construction on the list of projects would likely begin during the summer of 2007, according to Adna Superintendent Ed Rothlin, though, he said, he is unsure which of the projects would take top priority.
"Obviously, the stadium is something that could be done during school time that wouldn't interrupt education," he said, adding that the field would probably not be ready for the 2007 season.
History
The old field and grandstands, located near the school's district office at the site of the former Adna High School, was built by the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930s. Nearly 20 years later, the field was expanded from 80 to 100 yards when the school switched from six-man to eight-man football.
In early 1982, the Adna Lions Club was granted permission to perform a rehabilitation project on the field, leveling the ground and adding lights for night games. Before the improvements, games were played on Saturday to take advantage of daylight; during the 1982 season, while construction was going on, games were played at Back Memorial Park in downtown Adna.
"It was really a community project," said Marv Duncan, a 1953 Adna graduate who worked on the site with the Lions Club. "The night they dedicated the field, it was just beautiful."
Duncan added that after the field was finished and the public-address system was complete, people living in downtown Adna could hear the game over the loudspeakers. After 20 years, however, the trees surrounding the field have grown to muffle most of the sound.
The field, surrounded by trees on three sides, sits high above the rest of Adna, with the glow of the field lights visible from state Route 6. In 2003, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Craig Smith rated the field as one of his 20 favorite prep football facilities in Washington.
Despite the history and beauty of the field, Duncan said, the school needs a new stadium.
"They do," he said, "But you hate to see 'em lose that one."
Game time
The first home game of the 2006 season is scheduled for Sept. 15 against Adna's West Lewis County rival, Pe Ell. The wooden grandstands have a capacity of 380, with an extra set of uncovered metal bleachers on the visitors' side. The proposed stadium would seat 1,000.
One of the main benefits of a new stadium would be the extra seating and accessibility, said Adna's head football coach, K.C. Johnson.
"It's pretty darn steep, and not real safe for some of the older folks," he said. "At Adna, it's tradition to stand, but there might be a lot more people going to the games if they had easy access. A lot of older folks who might enjoy a ball game just stay home, because it's hard to get in that thing."
There are other drawbacks to the old field as well, he pointed out.
"Another big bonus, as far as coaches go, would be a new press box," he said. "We've always had one off to the side, but there's no cover on it now. You get soaked on a rainy night, and you're filming from the 30-yard line."
The locker room situation at the field is also fairly undesirable. Teams share a restroom in the school's old district office building. The visiting team uses an old classroom to change, and the Pirates prepare in the school's old lunchroom. After games, buses haul both teams down Dieckman Road to the high school, to change into street clothes and to shower.
Johnson, in his sixth season at Adna, teaches special education classes at the middle-high school and instructs a weight-training class. The gridiron squad works out on a 150-yard practice field behind the school's baseball diamonds, heading up the hill to run through plays on Thursday afternoons only.
Title town
The coach appreciates the history associated with the field, particularly the standout Adna teams from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Adna went as far as the state semi-finals in 1984, '85, '86, '88, '90 and '93, and took a state championship at the Kingdome in Seattle in 1989.
"A lot of people feel a real kinship toward that place," said Johnson. "It is one of the coolest settings throughout Southwest Washington, and it'd be really weird to move it."
Mike Brown, a 1996 Adna graduate and a three-time all-state running back for the Pirates, particularly remembers the grass from his old stomping grounds.
"The field itself was great," said Brown, who broke the state rushing and touchdown records while playing in Pirate blue and gold. "I always enjoy playing on grass fields since I was hitting the ground so much."
Brown currently lives in Renton with his wife and son, operating his own technology consulting firm. His state all-time rushing record has since been broken (by Wahkiakum's Jerrod Moore in 1999 and Timberline's Jonathan Stewart in 2004), but he still holds the state touchdown mark.
The best part of the old field, he said, was the fan support.
"There was nothing like playing in front of a home crowd," he said. "The rain made for interesting games in the mud, and it didn't hurt that the opposing teams' fans traditionally were in the metal bleachers in the rain."
The bleachers, he added, are one area that could be improved upon in a new stadium.
"There should be more covered areas for the fans and family members," he said. "When it rains and the wind blows, it's a bad combination."
What's in a name?
If the bond should pass, one of the last issues associated with a new stadium would be finding a name, something never officially bestowed upon the current Adna field.
"I think it's just the Adna football field," said Rothlin.
The scoreboard carries a dedication to the memory of Loren L. Reidl, but the stadium itself has never been given a name.
"I'm sure someone would think of that," Rothlin said. "That would be a board decision with some community input."
Ballots for the Sept. 19 election will be mailed out on Wednesday, two days before the Pirates' season opener at Winlock.
Aaron VanTuyl covers education and religion for The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8237 or by e-mail at avantuyl@chronline.com. His blog, "VanTuyl's Views," is on line at www.chronline.com. The current entry includes more about Adna High School football.
