Claremore Daily Progress

Sports Columnists

July 4, 2009

Terrell Lester on stadiums going up

TERRELL LESTER Column



John Scott has a treasury of stories from his 23 years as director of athletics at Owasso High School.

Now retired, the gregarious Scott is living in Sapulpa, where he once coached football.

During a recent get-together, Scott was curious about Sequoyah’s football stadium renovation.

Scott knows something about new football stadiums on high school campuses. It was 15 years ago this summer that he was wearing a hard hat and tracking the daily progress of Owasso’s stadium.

He dipped into his well of tales to talk about his stadium experiences.

He cautioned Sequoyah coaches and patrons to be patient as they count down to September and the proposed opening of their new football complex.

Scott was the AD at Owasso when the school district passed a bond issue — as Sequoyah did last fall — and began building the stadium that opened in 1994.

Owasso was leaving behind outdated Ator Field and was moving into new digs.

But it was not going to be that simple. Summer construction was not proceeding at a satisfactory pace.

The Rams were scheduled to play the first game of the ’94 season in their new home.

As August transitioned into September, Scott could see that “there was no way you could put on a football game” in the stadium that still was a work in progress.

He rescheduled the season-opener against Bartlesville for Ator Field.

“That was a tremendous problem,” he recalled the other day. “We had sold twice as many season tickets for the new stadium, which had a much larger seating capacity.”

He called it “a chaotic situation.”

“But we muddled through it,” he said. “Most everyone was very nice, very understanding.”

Owasso won that game, hit the road for the second week, then was scheduled to return home for Week 3.

Scott was assured that the new stadium would be complete. The 7:30 Friday night kickoff would be no cause for concern, he was told.

An hour before the start of the game, with thousands filing into the stadium, workers were continuing to apply finishing touches.

Some areas of the stadium, he said, were not finished, would not be finished that night. Workers roped off those areas.

But there was something else. Only one goal post had been erected on the field.

Scott convened the head coaches and the game referee. He apologized. Looked for solutions.

All parties agreed that the game would go on, should go on, and when extra-point kicks or field goals were called for, they would shift ends of the field, if necessary, to face the solitary goal post.

The teams went to their respective dressing rooms. And returned to the field for the kickoff.

“It was about 7:25, the workers were still on the field,” Scott said. Then he paused. “And they got that second goal post up. Just a couple of minutes before we were to kick off.

“I venture to say, to this day it’s the loudest ovation that’s ever taken place in Owasso,” he said. “Ten thousand people stood up in unison and roared their approval.

“I’ve never heard an ovation like that at a high school athletic event. And it didn’t have a thing to do with the ballgame. It was about five guys trying to put a goalpost up,” Scott said.

“It was funny, and it was sad, and it was one of those things that I’ll never forget.”

Scott, a member of the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame, experienced two landmark events during his stay at Owasso.

The stadium opening was one. Being named in the 1996 Title IX lawsuit against Owasso Public Schools was the other.

Scott said the stadium construction was the more difficult of the two to endure.

“Without a doubt,” he said.

“The anticipation for the new football stadium was a positive thing for everybody,” he said. “The attitude toward the lawsuit was not real positive. There was more negativity toward that.”

Scott survived each incident. And has moved on.

Last month, Owasso was putting the finishing touches on a new athletic complex adjacent to the football stadium. It brought back memories for Scott of his construction experiences.

He was told that Sequoyah’s construction was on schedule.

“Just tell the coaches to be patient,” he said.

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