When you need to find somebody in a small town on a fall Friday night, the fastest way is to look under the lights of the local football field. At least three communities in the state have made substantial improvements to their playing areas; with one school in the southeast putting together a magnificent modern facility with the community’s help.
The communities of McCook Lake, North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes make up the Dakota Valley School District. The system was carved out of the southern end of Union County 20 years ago. Dakota Valley’s home city of McCook Lake doesn’t really have a downtown or much in the way of shopping—so, as Athletic Director Bill Clements observes, an event at the high school draws most of the attention of people in the area.
“Any time you can turn the lights on on a Friday night, it gets your engines revved up a little bit, it gets you excited, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up—everybody gets pretty excited about your Friday night game. So, it’s pretty neat to have the new facility, and to be able to look at it and how beautiful that is, and to see the new turf sitting in front of it, it’s impressive,” says Clements.
The Dakota Valley District was building a new structure anyway, and the running track was having serious problems. So was the Panthers’ football field. So with the leadership of a community group, and a gift from former Iowa Beef Processors president, Robert L-Peterson, the entire athletic complex was re-done. The work includes a state of the art surface, known as Pro Turf. Plastic blades of grass hide billions of tiny recycled rubber pellets, which provide a field that requires little maintenance and greatly reduces injuries. The Panthers opened their field last week with one of the state’s strongest programs —the West Central Trojans. Clements says the football team rode the excitement of a new stadium and a raucous home crowd, to get a 21-6 win over West Central.
“It was always a challenge, playing West Central—and, again, that’s been our opening game the past couple years. And, so it was kind of an exciting time to have the first game against them here, and come out on the winning side with them as well,” reflects Clements.
Friday, the Panthers face another challenge, playing last year’s state 11A runner-up, Madison, on the Bulldogs home field.