What’s the score at Wilson?

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The early star of the 2007 football season at Wilson stands more than 20 feet tall and weighs nearly a ton. But it hasn’t scored a touchdown. Instead, it tells people the score.

‘It’ is a brand new blue-and-white electrical scoreboard rising out of the west end of the stadium, with bright orange-yellow lights.

Actually ‘new’ is not quite right. Wilson Coach Eddie Martinez, who is also the athletic director, said the scoreboard, which cost ‘over $30,000,’ was purchased five years ago, but it has been sitting in a campus storage facility until funding could be secured for its permanent placement.

‘There was always some kind of delay,’ Martinez said. ‘But we finally got it up this summer and got it working two weeks ago.’

Still, the other smaller, older scoreboard directly to the right of the new one hasn’t turned its lights out for good. Martinez said this summer Nike and Powerade both rented the field for filming of television and movie ads. Among the NFL players appearing in those ads were Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson.

The old scoreboard appearently got some generous camera time as well.

‘The old scoreboard is more popular than the new scoreboard,’ Martinez said.

At least the old scoreboard hasn’t hired an agent.

- Mike Terry