Brevard College moves football games to Asheville High
Concerns about field prompt change
By Keith Jarrett /
Asheville Citizen-Times
Concerns over field conditions and player safety have caused Brevard College to move its five 2010 home football games to Asheville High this fall.
But the Transylvania County Superintendent of Schools believes the field at Brevard High Memorial Stadium will be safe.
The Tornados have played Division II college football at Brevard High the past four seasons since re-instituting the sport in 2006.
Heavy rains last year created sloppy conditions for several BC home games. The Sept. 19 game against Southern Virginia was moved to Asheville High Memorial Stadium's (AstroTurf® GameDay Grass™ XPe) synthetic turf because of bad conditions, and home games against Catawba and Mars Hill at BHS were mud bowls in which players struggled to gain footing the entire game.
“It comes down to player safety,” BC athletic director Kim Pate said. “The field conditions were so bad last year, and we feel like very minimal repairs have been made on the drainage issues. We feel like playing at Brevard High is not a viable option.
“We were fortunate that there were no injures, but we were playing in a foot of mud.”
The school has scheduled a news conference at 10 a.m. Monday to announce the move.
“The field was fine for the first (four years) they played here, so what was the difference? The difference was record rainfall in Western North Carolina last year,” said Jeff McDaris, the superintendent of Transylvania County Schools.
“We feel like the field will be a safe surface. We wouldn't let anybody play on an unsafe surface.”
Pate said the decision to move home games was made just for the 2010 season and wasn't based on a field usage increase from $9,500 last year to $16,000 for 2010.
She said the college would pay AHS about $7,500 for the five home games.
“This is a temporary adjustment, and we'll have to look at it on a year by year basis,” she said. “The fee increase had absolutely nothing to do with our decision. This was about the concern of our student-athletes and their welfare.”
Pate said there are no plans in place for the college to build a football stadium.
McDaris said the fee increase was to help offset about $25,000 spent in improving a field that is about 50 years old and is used for 75-80 events a year, including youth and junior varsity football in addition to the varsity team at Brevard High.
McDaris added that the field was so bad last year that there were times when he feared for the safety of the players.
“(For the Sept. 18 game that was moved), the middle of the field was almost like pudding,” he said. “The Mars Hill game was horrendous; players couldn't make cuts or run through that stuff.
“It rained every Friday night last football season, and after a while we thought we might as well keep playing on the field because it was already destroyed.”
In 2005, Asheville High School installed AstroTurf® GameDay Grass™ XPe in their Memorial Stadium to play competitive football and soccer on this state-of-the-art surface.