3afan
12-10-2005, 06:35 AM
Politician seeks change to stadium choice
After HP fans left out of tiny title-game venue, Branch plans hearings
10:37 PM CST on Friday, December 9, 2005
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Just when fans thought the dustup over today's Highland Park-Marshall state high school football championship couldn't get any messier: Here come the politicians.
After being slammed with phone calls and e-mails from brokenhearted Highland Park fans, state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, said Friday that he would hold public hearings on the "broken system" that allowed the Marshall coach to pick a tiny stadium that holds a fraction of the fans who would pay to see the game.
It's especially trouble, he said, "in a state that's famous for its 'Friday Night Lights' " and struggling to find money for its public schools.
"It's outrageous that a state final game is being played in a stadium so small that it denies access to thousands of fans, families and friends," said Mr. Branch, who leads a House subcommittee charged with finding revenue sources for schools and whose district includes Highland Park High School.
His counterpart in Marshall, GOP Rep. Bryan Hughes, doesn't agree, saying the system is fair because it doesn't force rural schools to travel for every championship. Mr. Hughes, incidentally, has a ticket to today's game. Mr. Branch won't attend.
Highland Park hasn't won a championship in 48 years, and the school wanted to play at Texas Stadium but lost a coin toss to Marshall, which chose Rose Stadium in Tyler, closer to home. It accommodates 14,000 fans at most.
Each school sold all of its 5,500 tickets in a couple of days – leaving an estimated 20,000 or more fans without tickets.
Some wound up paying scalpers hundreds of dollars. Others paid Marshall residents to buy up some of that town's allotment – prompting a Marshall newspaper columnist to declare that a Scots fan would have to "pry my cold, dead fingers from the stub" before he would let it go to someone other than a "red-blooded Marshall Maverick."
Dallas resident Greg McCoy, a Scots football player in the 1970s, sent a friend to stand in line at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, and still didn't get a ticket because the booster club had sold them all the night before. He'll have to settle for a watch party at his house.
"I was denied," he said with a chuckle. "What I would do is designate a stadium in August and let the teams shoot for a trip to that city. You're losing a lot of revenue the way they're doing it now."
Mr. Branch said he would make a recommendation for changes to the full House education committee next summer. One idea, he said, is for the University Interscholastic League to limit coaches' choices to major stadiums – such as the Astrodome, Texas Stadium or the Alamodome.
UIL officials won't comment on pending legislation, but they noted that schools had resisted changes in the past.
Mr. Branch said the time has come for changes.
"This is a big deal," he said. "My phone has been ringing off the wall. This makes school finance look like a minor issue."
E-mail kmbrooks@dallasnews.com
After HP fans left out of tiny title-game venue, Branch plans hearings
10:37 PM CST on Friday, December 9, 2005
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Just when fans thought the dustup over today's Highland Park-Marshall state high school football championship couldn't get any messier: Here come the politicians.
After being slammed with phone calls and e-mails from brokenhearted Highland Park fans, state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, said Friday that he would hold public hearings on the "broken system" that allowed the Marshall coach to pick a tiny stadium that holds a fraction of the fans who would pay to see the game.
It's especially trouble, he said, "in a state that's famous for its 'Friday Night Lights' " and struggling to find money for its public schools.
"It's outrageous that a state final game is being played in a stadium so small that it denies access to thousands of fans, families and friends," said Mr. Branch, who leads a House subcommittee charged with finding revenue sources for schools and whose district includes Highland Park High School.
His counterpart in Marshall, GOP Rep. Bryan Hughes, doesn't agree, saying the system is fair because it doesn't force rural schools to travel for every championship. Mr. Hughes, incidentally, has a ticket to today's game. Mr. Branch won't attend.
Highland Park hasn't won a championship in 48 years, and the school wanted to play at Texas Stadium but lost a coin toss to Marshall, which chose Rose Stadium in Tyler, closer to home. It accommodates 14,000 fans at most.
Each school sold all of its 5,500 tickets in a couple of days – leaving an estimated 20,000 or more fans without tickets.
Some wound up paying scalpers hundreds of dollars. Others paid Marshall residents to buy up some of that town's allotment – prompting a Marshall newspaper columnist to declare that a Scots fan would have to "pry my cold, dead fingers from the stub" before he would let it go to someone other than a "red-blooded Marshall Maverick."
Dallas resident Greg McCoy, a Scots football player in the 1970s, sent a friend to stand in line at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, and still didn't get a ticket because the booster club had sold them all the night before. He'll have to settle for a watch party at his house.
"I was denied," he said with a chuckle. "What I would do is designate a stadium in August and let the teams shoot for a trip to that city. You're losing a lot of revenue the way they're doing it now."
Mr. Branch said he would make a recommendation for changes to the full House education committee next summer. One idea, he said, is for the University Interscholastic League to limit coaches' choices to major stadiums – such as the Astrodome, Texas Stadium or the Alamodome.
UIL officials won't comment on pending legislation, but they noted that schools had resisted changes in the past.
Mr. Branch said the time has come for changes.
"This is a big deal," he said. "My phone has been ringing off the wall. This makes school finance look like a minor issue."
E-mail kmbrooks@dallasnews.com