I know its a big picture, but it has to be to describe how gorgeous this stadium is. This is the stadium Friday Night Lights is centered around, the book, the movie and the television series (though the TV series is not shot here). After reading the book Friday Night Lights - A Town, A Team, and A Dream, by H.G. Bissinger, I was hooked in finding large high school football stadiums. Over time my love has evolved to every high school stadium I can find, but it all started with the big ones, and Texas has the biggest and the best. Allen school district is building an $18 million stadium over the next year that seats 26K people. Three times bigger than the stadium that my college uses.
After finding out we would be driving through Texas on my trip this summer I had only one request; to visit Ratliff Stadium. Home to the Permian Panthers and Odessa Bronchos (yes the spelling is correct). This place rises out of the flat grounds of Texas and dips into the earth, a wild look when standing in the parking lot. It seats 22K people and even though it is not filled every Friday night in the fall, most Friday nights it is. We got very lucky when pulling up to this place because the gates were locked, however a maintenance man was about to leave and was kind enough to let us in for 15 minutes. The 15 minutes turned into 30 as he told me and my dad stories of games in the 80s and 90s; the hey-day for Permian football. He had worked there for 45 years and was proud to have been employee of the district. He let us onto the field to take pictures and told us how crazy it was when they filmed the movie "Friday Night Lights" there.
This is the visitors side of the stadium. Nothing very special about it, except it holds more than the average high school stadium holds. There are concession stands and bathrooms on the other side. But I imagine it is pretty hot sitting over there in the hot Texas fall. The outside of the stadium is lined in trees and it looks pretty neat, giving it almost a circular arena.
This is the home side of the stadium. Same structure as the visitors except for the large press box sitting on top. This side, just like the visitors holds about 11K people. It has 'bowl-like' entrances which means you enter in the middle and either go up or go down. Concessions and restrooms are located behind the seats.
Another thing I did not mention in the
New Braunfels HS post is that the one other thing I love to look at when I visit high school stadiums is the scoreboards. Ratliff Stadium has a great one. In one endzone there is a videoboard/scoreboard, and on the other just a plain scoreboard. That is very rare for most high school stadiums, but since this one is so big it is necessary.
It was truly amazing to be able to visit Ratliff Stadium. I've loved it ever since I finished the book about 8 years ago and I never thought I would be able to get out to Texas and enjoy seeing this monster. It was also great to get to talk to someone who had been there for everything I had read and heard about Permian football and the town of Odessa. There are two more pictures I am going to share with you. One is just of a parking lot. The maintenance guy told me that when they filmed the movie, that the parking lot was full of RV's and movie crews and make shift concession stands and all of that stuff that tags along to a movie scene. The other picture is of the back side of the home stands. It is a pretty neat view of the press box and the RV I traveled in that summer. Hope you enjoyed the post, and check back soon for more pictures and stories of stadiums I've visited throughout my travels.
