Team Plays 1st Game at New Stadium

Anthony Sanford’s eyes glistened as he spoke about finally being able to play a football game at home, in his last year of high school.

“I’ve always dreamed of playing a game in the stadium on campus,” said Sanford, captain of the Compton High School football team.

The Tarbabes played at home Friday for the first time in three years--in a new $3-million, 2,200-seat stadium. It has bleachers in the school’s colors of light blue and white, new floodlights, a new electric scoreboard with message board, and a new grass field.

In a few weeks, an all-weather track, featuring a light blue surface with white lines, also will be installed.

The game Friday at Ramsaur Stadium culminated a four-year effort to replace a historic facility that had fallen prey to years of neglect, vandalism and finally arson. Compton High played its home games at Dominguez High during the slow rebuilding process.

“It was like somebody telling you that you were in your own house, but you knew that you really didn’t live there,” said Thomas Jeter, another player.

As it turned out, Sanford, Jeter and their teammates needed more than the inspiration of a homecoming game at their campus field. Compton lost to Wilson High of Long Beach, 56-0, leaving the Tarbabes’ record at 1-9 overall and 0-4 in the Moore League.

Mayor Walter Tucker III, a Compton High graduate, looked beyond the score to proclaim the community as the winner. The stadium “shows that there is a rebirth in the city,” Tucker said. “When people drive by and see the new stadium, they’ll realize that many good things are happening in Compton.”

The new arena, like the original stadium, bears the name of William Ramsaur Sr., a school board trustee who proposed that a junior college be established in Compton. Ramsaur was a major financial contributor to the construction of a stadium for the college in the 1930s.

Compton Junior College consistently played in front of sellout crowds in the old stadium, which was home to one of the biggest international track and field events on the West Coast, the Compton Invitational.

The stadium ultimately became the property of the Compton Unified School District and Compton High School. It finally had to be replaced when district officials began to question its safety as well as its condition.

The plan was to build a new stadium within 18 months at a cost of about $1.5 million. But both numbers would double before the new stadium would hold its first game. Part of the delay and extra expense resulted from a change in construction plans, Associate Supt. Ken Flood said. Crews had to replace water and electrical lines, an unexpected expense.

In addition, one of the contractors defaulted on its construction bid, forcing the district to find a new builder at additional cost, Flood said. The district is currently in litigation over the matter. The district paid for the stadium with proceeds from developer fees and the sale of bonds and unused property.

Times staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this story.