Prep Review : Shedding Light on Darker Aspects of Fred Kelly Stadium

Bob Lester, El Modena High School football coach, when informed that a reporter was researching a story about the lights at Fred Kelly Stadium: “In order to do that, you’re going to have to open your eyes real wide.”

A searchlight might help. Or even a flashlight.

Anyone have a butane lighter?

According to Lester, Fred Kelly Stadium, located on Chapman Ave. in the southeast corner of Orange, is the most poorly lighted field in Orange County.

It’s so dark it sometimes is difficult to discern the players from their shadows.

To televise games there, KDOC (Channel 56) must adjust the contrast on its cameras to the highest level to make the lighting look decent.

As you can imagine, these are not the most ideal conditions under which football should be played.

But for El Modena, Villa Park, Canyon and Orange high schools, this is home.

It doesn’t seem right that the Orange Unified School District, which encompasses some of Orange County’s wealthiest areas in Villa Park and Orange, should have such a poorly lit football facility.

And what’s peculiar is that no one seems to want to do anything about it although there are possible alternatives.

Coaches seem resigned to the fact that the district, which is experiencing declining enrollment and, like most school districts, is in a financial straitjacket, has no plans to upgrade the field’s lighting.

They don’t bother complaining, and their booster clubs haven’t approached the district about the issue, so district administrators don’t see a great need to improve the lighting.

“I know this district and nothing will be done,” said Lester, in his 20th year at El Modena. “I don’t talk to them about it and I don’t want my booster club giving the district money to redo the lights, because that takes money away from my team. Nobody complains much anymore.”

Canyon Coach Rod Hust: “The quality of the lights has never been brought up by our boosters. It’s something we’ve grown accustomed to, and we accept it. We have a booster club to benefit the kids, not to fund the district.”

Villa Park Coach Pat Mahoney: “It’s something the district can’t do right now, but I’m not that upset. It’s the old story that if you don’t expect it, then you don’t worry much.”

Orange Coach S.K. Johnson: “It’s the district’s job, and I don’t think they’ll do anything.”

This is the passive attitude that Mel Grable, district administrator of school-community services, perceives from his constituents.

“Booster clubs really haven’t approached us about the lights,” said Grable, who oversees Fred Kelly Stadium. “We’ve briefly discussed having a district fund-raiser for new lights, but we haven’t been able to put anything together, and there hasn’t been interest or push from booster clubs. That tells me they’re not that unhappy with the lights.”

When these people talk about upgrading the lights on the football field, they’re considering a job that could cost up to $100,000 and include replacing the light standards, the bulbs and the entire energy system.

The district simply can’t afford it. Not when there are teachers who need raises and students who need textbooks and more teachers. New lights are a luxury item, far down the priority list.

But, as far-fetched as this may seem, the district could upgrade the lights at Fred Kelly for about one-fourth of their anticipated costs.

All it would take is a little cooperation between the schools and someone to take the initiative.

Don’t think it’s possible? It is.

In 1982 in the Newport-Mesa Unified District, which, thanks to a cooperative venture between Newport Harbor, Corona del Mar, Estancia and Costa Mesa high schools, transformed darkened Davidson Field at Newport Harbor High into a well-lit facility for $25,000.

The district contracted Musco Sports Lighting Inc., based in Muscatine, Iowa, to upgrade the lighting system, using the existing poles and energy system, and thus saving about $70,000.

Musco, which lit last January’s Super Bowl at Stanford Stadium and 10 Olympic venues in 1984, replaced the aging mercury vapor bulbs at Davidson Field with state-of-the-art metal halide bulbs, which are more intense and better color-corrected.

On 10 light standards, there had been 94 1,500-watt quartz lamps, and their energy use was 141 kilowatts per hour. They produced a light level of 10 foot-candles.

Musco replaced those with 48 1,500-watt metal halide bulbs, which consume 81 kilowatts per hour but produce a light level of 54 foot-candles.

That’s about a 400% improvement in lighting with a 43% reduction in energy use.

The school district paid for the project, but was reimbursed by the schools’ booster clubs over a three-year period. The cost was divided into five parts, one for each school and the fifth for the district, so each school was responsible for raising $5,000 over three years to fund the project. That came out to a $1,667 donation per year.

“That was one of our better projects,” Newport Harbor Principal Tom Jacobson said.

The $1,667 a year cost wouldn’t be asking too much from the El Modena or Orange booster clubs, which annually raise about $20,000, or Canyon’s, which raises about $15,000, or Villa Park’s, which raises about $10,000.

“We could do the same thing at Fred Kelly Stadium for about the same price,” said Brent Marchetti, Southern California representative for Musco who has a son (Marc) who played football at Foothill High and another (Mike) on the Knight sophomore team.

“I haven’t taken any readings there, but the lighting is of poor quality,” he said. “Refurbishing is a simple job because they have the right ingredients--light standards and an electrical system that can handle our units. We’d just have to take the old lamps down and put the new ones in. It can be done in a day.”

One of Marchetti’s salespersons had approached the Orange district two years ago, but the district had just replaced the bulbs, cleaned the fixtures and re-aimed the lights, a fairly expensive process. They weren’t interested in further changes.

But Grable, the district administrator, was never informed of Musco’s 1983 visit. He hadn’t even heard of the company but was eager to learn more about their work at Davidson Field and how it was funded.

“That sounds very interesting,” he said. “I’m writing down everything you’re saying and will bring this up next week at our athletic council meeting. I don’t know if our booster clubs will be interested or whether or not we can fund it, but you know what they say, the dumbest question is the one never asked.”

If the question is asked, and the district and schools can cooperate, maybe they can shed some light on this issue.

Flip Side: The fate of what many believe is Orange County’s best high school football facility, Santa Ana Stadium, is hinging on the possibility that the Westdome, a $35-million arena, will be built next year in the downtown area. If the Westdome comes, Santa Ana Stadium must go.

The City of Santa Ana, which plans to relocate the stadium, has narrowed its choices for possible sites to one--Centennial Regional Park, on Edinger Avenue and Fairview Street in Santa Ana.

Allen Doby, Santa Ana’s executive director of cultural recreation and community services, said the city will begin surveying the 87-acre park site and surrounding area to see if it will be feasible to build a stadium there.

The other proposed sites were Rancho Santiago College and Santa Ana Valley High School, but neither school wanted a stadium built on its campus. The city hopes to build the stadium on 31 undeveloped acres of Centennial Park, which encloses several softball fields, picnic shelters, a 10-acre lake and a building for Rancho Santiago extension classes.

It plans to increase seating capacity in the stadium from the present 11,000 to 13,000 and include a 400-meter track.

Bogus Bio: Prep football fans who have thumbed through the Villa Park program may have done a double take when they read the biography of Steve Walker, Spartan assistant coach in charge of receivers and kickers.

It said that Walker lives at the YMCA in Orange with his pet dolphin, Max, and that his favorite pastime is analyzing specific tank battles during the end of World War II.

What it didn’t say was that Walker was also into telling fish stories, because that’s what his biography was. It was just a joke, he said.

Prep Notes

Savanna football players are wearing the numeral 11 on their helmets this season in memory of Jeff Eastbourn, who died last March of an unknown cause. Eastbourn, who would have been a senior this year, was a starting defensive end for the Rebels last season. . . . Servite players wore yellow strips down the middle of their helmets for Saturday night’s game against Marina to honor Father Larry Jenco, who is one of six U.S. hostages still being held in Lebanon. Jenco, who taught at Servite last summer, was captured last December while doing missionary work in Beirut. It marked the first time in 25 years that the Friars had anything but black and white on their helmets. . . . There are three significant rule changes for the 1985 football season. All holding penalties are 10-yard infractions instead of 15 yards. Kickoffs that go out of bounds will no longer result in the receiving team gaining possession on its 40-yard line. Instead, a receiving team has the choice of a five-yard penalty or the placement of the ball where it went out of bounds. Also, an infraction for an ineligible receiver downfield is a five-yard penalty with a loss of down instead of 15 yards. . . . Costa Mesa football Coach Tom Baldwin was in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium on Sunday to introduce former Santa Ana High School and Bengal star Isaac Curtis at his halftime retirement ceremony. Curtis, who retired this year after 12 NFL seasons, played for Baldwin in high school. . . . Foothill Athletic Director Ted Mullen is taking applications for a boys’ and girls’ track coach in a walk-on capacity. Mullen also needs football opponents for his second, fourth and fifth games in 1986. . . . Former Los Alamitos linebacker Jared Hjelmstad, an all-county, second-team selection in 1984, has left Cal State Northridge to enroll at Golden West College but will not play football this year. . . . Newport Christian, which won the eight-man small schools division football championship in 1984, has dropped its football program. . . . Former Newport Harbor running back/defensive back Steve Foley, uncle of current quarterback Shane Foley, is working under Hollywood film director Peter Bogdonavich. . . . Steve Rothblum, a walk-on assistant football coach at Los Alamitos, is a quarter horse trainer at the Los Alamitos Race Course.