A few months before Super Bowl 2015 and just in time for their Sept. 26 homecoming game, ASU Preparatory Academy received a new football field and scoreboard from the Super Bowl Host Committee, NFL Foundation and the Arizona Cardinals.
Fittingly, the new field was named “Super Bowl XLIV Legacy Field” to commemorate the game.
The new field will not be just for current students and is intended to leave a lasting impact, said Christine Gonzales, senior director of community outreach for the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee.
“There’s a historic piece of this whole legacy, as well,” Gonzales said. “It used to be Montgomery (Stadium) … and it had a lot of history with the Salad Bowl, the precursor to what turned into the Fiesta Bowl. And then it was all basically renovated and tore down, so this was a chance for us to leave a lasting legacy to rebuild that historic piece of it.”
The committee wanted to do something for the community and knew ASU Prep had a need for it, Gonzales said.
Before the renovation, the field was a dirt lot littered with rocks, which could potentially cause injuries for anyone playing on it.
“There was a lot of safety issues when the youth were playing on the field,” Gonzales said. “It was very uneven, it was very unsafe, there were a lot of rocks on the ground.”
The field also lacked a scoreboard, a vital piece for any game, until the committee donated one.
“It’s brand new and, again, something that they can get excited about, and they can see the score, and it’ll be really great,” Gonzales said.
ASU Prep middle school football coach Byron Evans can attest to that. A few games have been played on the new field with positive responses from the players and fans, he said.
“The reaction was great,” Evans said. “The fans were great. It was — as a whole — great for the community.”
Evans added that it was “a win-win situation” in that the field was a solution to the committee’s desire to leave “a lasting legacy” and the school’s need for a new field.
Getting the field was a process in itself. Brett Isacksen, ASU Prep’s director of business and community outreach, said the school had been working with the committee for the past two years. The planning and installation actually began in May.
“They confirmed that ‘Hey, we’re going to help you guys out — we’ll get you a new field,’ and then … ‘All right we’re starting on this date,’” Isacksen said. “Everything went really quickly.”
The installation of the new field comes just a few months before the Super Bowl in February 2015. While the game itself will be held in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, many of the events surrounding the game will be held in downtown Phoenix.
“They decided, ‘What better place to put a new field than ASU Prep?’ Because then the Super Bowl Committee might be able to do NFL Play 60 (in the field) or anything like that, and it’s right downtown next to all the festivities,” Isacksen said.
This field is not only another place for Super Bowl events, but hopefully also a remembrance of the historic field that once stood in its place, Gonzales said.
Contact the reporter at Nikiana.Medansky@asu.edu
