Luverne School, Luverne, AL

Luverne School (formerly Luverne High School Tigers)

Luverne School was supposed to be the last stadium I visited on the way to Mobile in May, but then I hit up Brantley High School and Georgiana High School. Luverne houses PK-12 with a total enrollment of 1040 students, which puts it in the 3-A Alabama classification.  I have a lot of pictures of this little stadium, and it is situated right inside the high school grounds.  It's actually a pretty sweet location even though it is a small stadium.

Home stands (I'm assuming)

     I am assuming that these are the home stands since they are newer and the press box is named.  The visitors stands have a larger press box, but older, smaller stands.  The building to the left is the end of the schools gym and the walk way from the entrance over to the home stands is very small, but it puts you right in the action.  Very cool in my book.

Picture of the whole stadium

     In this view, my back is straight against the wall of the school.  Like I mentioned earlier, the walkway is very small, but it puts you right on the field.   Also these stands are extremely close to the field, assuming that both squads are not very big and cheerleading squads are small, you will be up close and personal watching a football game at Luverne School.

Visitors side of the stadium

    I'm guessing this is the former home side of the stadium judging by the pressbox, because what small school would have two press boxes unless they switched sides (Which seems to be a common thread in the stadiums I have visited, maybe the new thing now is to have a press box on both sides of the field, but I've only encountered that in small town stadiums not in the larger stadiums.  Which makes me think that the schools has switched the sides around).  This is set up very nice for the visiting fans, although it is spread out, it allows the fans to sit behind where ever their son probably stands for most of the game.  It is also closer to the entrance than the home side is.

Entrance to the stadium

Nice record of state champs and state runner up, should be due any time now for that next state championship.   The team is also in class 3-A now.

Scoreboard, I love the Tiger on top.  Very unique touch for a basic scoreboard for a small school.

Side of the school

Press box on the home stands

State banners

    I absolutely loved this stadium.  The setting is awesome, where the school is located is pretty neat too.  I would definitely drive down to this part of Alabama again on a Friday night to watch Brantley play and then come back through the next Friday night and watch Luverne play.  Two amazing small town football stadiums that explain why I really love traveling around and visiting stadiums.  Thanks Luverne School for letting me onto the field to take some pictures.

Jones County, Gray, GA

Jones County High School Greyhounds

     Jones County was a school Tonya and I came across on our way back from south Georgia.  I think it was the last one we visited on the trip because I remember the camera dying while we were taking pictures, which is why there are only four of them.  I apologize for not having more, especially one that shows the whole stadium or the sign of the school.

Home side of the field

     The home side of the field is a decent size.  This is a quad-A classification high school, and small one at that with the enrollment at 1,171 (schools w/ 1850+ students are placed in five-A).  The far left side of the stands are shorter than the main section and was an addition in the past several years. Now there are no lines on the field yet, but these seats seem very close to the field which is awesome.  The concession stand and booster club tent are right near by which is clutch for every fan and the scoreboard is visible to all.  It's a very standard home-stands look, but it is functional in every way.

Thats the visitors side, and my gf in the picture.  Her hair really isn't that poofy, windows rolled down will do that to long hair haha.  Sorry Tonya! (it does look like something out of the 80s.

     The one thing I like about the visitors stands at Jones County is that it gives the visiting band a section all to themselves.  To me that is nice so that the fans do not have to worry about the band standing up or being in the way the entire game.  Concessions aren't that close by, but definitely within hurry distance if you're needing to get back to the action.  Also once again, let me point out how different the light poles are in the Georgia and Alabama stadiums than the oil rig looking light poles that a lot of the Texas stadiums have.  

Entrance into the stadium.

     This is a gorgeous entrance.  Nice gated area, great statue and plaque to give the visiting fans a unique piece of information about Jones County.  It also gives me a nice shot of the scoreboard which is the type of scoreboard that should be standard at every high school. JCHS has a typically standard high school stadium but the entrance and the hound pound sign are two things that set it apart.

More coming next week

Last week I discovered that I could not find pictures on the rest of the stadiums I have visited.  Last night however I found those pictures.  11 stadiums total.
Today I drove down to Mobile, AL to visit some friends for a few days and I made visits to 5 other stadiums along US 29 in East/Southeast AL. Those will be up soon as well.  

New Braunfels High School Unicorns (TX)

The first stadium I will blog about is New Braunfels HS in New Braunfels, TX.

And yes, that is a Unicorn on the sign for NBHS. As my family and I were driving through Texas this summer we randomly passed by here and as soon as I saw that the stadium name was Unicorn Stadium, we had to stop. I remember reading an article in Sports Illustrated for Kids many years ago about strange high school nicknames, and I'm pretty sure this might have been on there.
The stadium is built out of metal, and looks like your basic high school football stadium. Both the home and visitor sides are of equal length with the home side having a press box built on top. There was a decent amount of parking behind the visitors section, but most of the parking was in the actual school parking lot. One neat thing I started to notice about all these stadiums is the way the lights are constructed. To me they look like the tall structures that are built on oil fields that house the machinery used to pump the oil. I've never thought to look at the lights before, but during this trip most of the schools utilized this feature. It may be the way all across the nation. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled next time I pass by a stadium.
Another feature of the high school football stadium I like to look at is the entrance, which includes the section where tickets are taken up and the fans enter the field. This particular stadium had a tiny ticket booth, which to me is classic. It's old school and that's what I love to see. It doesn't match very well with the modern look of this stadium, so it definitely stands out.
**This entrance may be a former entrance, and tickets could be taken up at the gate in the background, but there were windows on that little brick building.
One thing I find hilarious about this picture is the hoof prints leading into the gates. They seriously have some Unicorn pride, which they should for such a unique mascot.
The reason for stopping by this stadium was not because of the uniqueness of the structure, and it was not even one of my planned stops but after seeing the mascot name I knew we had to make a special stop to snap a few photos of this high school.
Here are some more photos: