A Field to Call Home

The tender grass blades haven’t sprouted yet and the all-weather track has yet to be poured, but Terry Dobbins can already see the future of the new Royal High School stadium.

“The first football game of next year, we play San Marcos High School,” said Dobbins, Royal’s athletic director. “It will be a sell-out crowd.”

After decades of waiting--no, longing--for a stadium to call their own, Royal High School staff members and students can barely contain their excitement over the $3.1-million showcase stadium, complete with a nine-lane, all-weather track, room enough for soccer and football games and high-rise concrete bleachers.

It is, Royal boosters say, a welcome homestead for the perpetually nomadic Highlander teams.

The stadium very likely won’t open until January. Runners won’t take the blocks for the first home track meet until March. The stadium’s inaugural football season is 10 months away. But next week, the Royal High community will mark the end of construction. Finally.

“The staff, the students and the community are all really proud that this is getting done--and rightfully so,” said Royal Principal Doug Huckaby while walking through the stadium, which still resembles a mud bowl more than the Rose Bowl.

But progress is undeniable. Where once there was a practice football field behind the school now stands a stadium, with seating for 3,500 on the home side and another 1,000 on the visitors’ side. A hilly dirt berm rings the bleachers. A green, glass-enclosed press box overlooks the field where Bermuda grass will one day grow. A nine-window concession stand awaits hot dogs and sodas. The sound system, electrical scoreboard and the state-of-the-art lighting system, which limits lights shining into nearby residential areas, are all wired.

When Royal High School was built in 1968, there was no money left for a stadium. So the football Highlanders played games at rival Simi High School initially, then later at Moorpark College. Fine facilities both, but they were not home.

“We’ve been on the road for 27 years,” Dobbins said. “We’ve never played at home for varsity and sophomore football.”

Royal High’s soccer teams now dribble and shoot at Rancho Simi Park. Track squad members sprint and practice pole-vaulting and shot-putting on an unfinished campus course that loses two inches of dirt when the Santa Anas blow, and mucks up when the rains come, according to Dobbins.

The new stadium was funded by the school district’s 1992 issuance of $12.6 million in certificates of participation. Those certificates--repaid over 25 years, like a mortgage--are also paying for two, $2.5-million gymnasiums at Valley View and Sinaloa junior highs, $500,000 in improvements to the Simi Valley High School stadium and an $800,000 multipurpose room at Hillside Junior High.

The additional amount of about $3 million created a “sinking fund” so that the Simi Valley Unified School District could make the first three years of payments without affecting its general fund, said Dave Kanthak, assistant superintendent for business services.

A costly and unpredictable water table problem that turned the stadium site into a pond forced the Royal High project to be scaled back significantly. Instead of constructing a below-bleacher team room and weight room, the school district invested about $500,000 in an elaborate pumping system to keep the field dry. Instead of 7,000 seats, Royal got 4,500.

No matter, Royal High seniors say. “It’s better than nothing,” joked Casandra Krisatis, 17.

What’s cool is the prospect of holding graduation in the roomy new stadium instead of on the intimate--some say cramped--Royal High quad. The final graduation site has not been determined, Huckaby said.

But don’t tell senior Gwyn Hagerty that.

“We’re graduating in it--there’s no two ways about it,” said Gwyn, also 17. “We’ll be the first class to do it. It’s home--something you can call your own.”

Huckaby can’t guarantee a stadium graduation. Nor can he conjure up any home football games this year.

As a concession, perhaps, the principal climbed the 63 steps to the top of the home bleachers. Sweeping out his hand, marking the panoramic sprawl of Simi Valley’s golden hills and red-roofed developments, Huckaby noted a home stadium advantage that seniors can take advantage of this year.

“Isn’t is impressive?” he asked. “Look at that view.”