'We need more fields': How improved Halle Stadium could change Memphis high school football
MASE football coach Cedric Miller described Halle Stadium as the pride of East Memphis. He spent several years there in charge of Wooddale in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
On Friday nights, the bleachers would be packed to standing room only. The atmosphere would be exactly like you’d expect for a big game. It was the standard for high school football in the city of Memphis.
Nowadays, Halle Stadium is quiet and desolate, an afterthought and distant memory of what it used to be. Ridgeway High School still uses it, but it’s not the same.
“We played in Halle Stadium at times when it’s been nothing but dirt,” said Ridgeway coach Duron Sutton. “Every time after a play it’s a dirt cloud.”
Halle Stadium is in the process of being transferred from the city to the school district, with plans to renovate the dilapidated facility and restore the atmosphere it once had on Friday nights. The proposed improvements include new lights, new artificial turf, bleacher renovations and replacing the track.
"They need to be adding another field,” Sutton said. “We need more fields.”
Memphis-Shelby County Schools is showing initiative in wanting to upgrade its facilities. Crump Stadium, on the campus of Central High School, was recently renovated, with a turf field added. Whitehaven's Memorial Field and Melrose Stadium, two other commonly used stadiums for Friday night football games, are also in line to receive upgrades to press boxes and stadium lighting as well as replacing the existing turf surface.
"Comparing schools to western Tennessee and the schools out here, stadiums wise, we’re behind,” said Sheffield coach Edward Kuykendoll.
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Sutton said he still uses Halle Stadium despite the outdated conditions because of the convenience for spectators and students.
"It’s too difficult to have a home game at, say Melrose or Crump Stadium,” Sutton said. “Our kids can’t get out there. It’s a lot easier for them to get to Halle Stadium or Kirby Stadium.”
Kuykendoll said if the stadium conditions weren’t as bad as they were, he’d utilize Halle Stadium as much as he could because it’s closer – only three miles away.
It’s a challenge a lot of Memphis schools face, having to share fields and travel around the city to available space for Thursday, Friday and sometimes Saturday games. White Station coach Teran Conley said they’ve utilized Crump Stadium and Kirby Stadium as a homefield location this past season as well as Cordova. White Station doesn't even have a designated home field. The Spartans just play where there's an availability.
With Halle as an option, it would make traveling for home games a little more manageable.
"Halle Stadium being another option, and possibly being a home field for us, would meet a need,” Conley said. “You don’t know how having to always travel in different places with nowhere to call home, how it impacts the energy of your football team.
“Especially when everybody around you has their home field; especially things like homecoming.”
Halle Stadium isn’t just important because of the high schools that use it, but because of what it's done previously.
“It holds a lot of history value to it and it is one of the centerpieces in East Memphis,” Miller said. “Having that field being brought back up to par will allow some of the schools in that area to be able to use it at their expense.”
The timeline for the improvements to Halle Stadium are contingent upon the property transfer. The Whitehaven improvements were approved during an Aug. 30 business board meeting; the Melrose Stadium improvements contract has been put on hold.
It’s unclear if Halle Stadium would have to be closed for the duration of the improvements or if the stadium could still be in use.
Either way, coaches are hopeful improvements can begin soon so Halle Stadium can be restored as a cornerstone in Memphis-Shelby County Schools athletics and the city of Memphis.
"Any upgrades to the facilities is going to enhance the atmospheres of all schools and of all sports,” Miller said. “For them to get that initiative going is a great thing for the city and all the sports in the city school system.”
Reach Wynston Wilcox at wwilcox@gannett.com and on Twitter @wynstonw__.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: What improving Halle Stadium means for Memphis high school football
