TACOMA, Wash. – Stadium High Senior Jalen Scott cannot wait to return to his home field.
"There's a lot of buzz around our team now," he said Thursday after practice. "It's going to be electric."
The anticipation comes from the fact Stadium High's home season was abbreviated by a storm in mid-October 2015 that flooded the field, damaged storage buildings and left equipment for several sports programs water logged and useless.
"It was real bad," said Athletic Director Jim Catalinich, "A lot of the damage came because the drains filled up with leaves."
Stadium High sits in a natural bowl and its athletic fields have been damaged by storms and flooding before. What happened last year was accentuated by the availability of eyewitness accounts and social media video.
The Tacoma School District said it spent $325,000 to fix the facility. The city has also worked to improve drainage around the site.
But much of the damaged equipment was replaced through donations from the public. Even the Seattle Seahawks donated shoes.
"It's a very important part of the history of Tacoma," Catalinich said of the stadium, "If you're pragmatic, you're going to think, 'it's not worth restoring.' It's concrete, 100-years-old, but I think there's that history."
Stadium High opens up against Steilacoom at 7 p.m.
