Published: November 09, 2009 03:11 pm      

Pete Kendall: What’s wrong with having, using a home field advantage, anyway?

Just to prove how quickly you can sink to your armpits in quicksand when you start writing about someone’s proudest possessions, let me tell you about the time I incurred the wrath of the Alvarado ISD’s proudest supporter, the late Bill Jackson.

God rest his soul, Bill was a lovely man.

I loved the way he loved his family and friends and the way he embraced life before his untimely death.

I think Bill loved me, too, but maybe not so much on the occasion I wrote a followup to an Alvarado-Burleson football game story that he believed was critical of the Indians’ football facility, Charles Head Stadium.

Burleson won the game but only barely.

Burleson’s coach, the late Mark Saunders, told me on the phone, and I’m paraphrasing here: “They outcoached and outplayed us. They should have beaten us. We had a heck of a problem finding the football when they ran their option. With the dim lights, the football blended right into those dark purple uniforms.”

I interpreted this as a compliment to the Indians and their coach, Jim Skinner.

Everyone knew the Alvarado stadium lights were not among the best in Johnson County.

Who was to blame Skinner for making those lights a homefield advantage? Not Saunders. Certainly not me.

Mr. Jackson dashed off a heated letter to our editor. He defended the Indians’ football lights, which in truth were far superior to the medieval facilities Alvarado used in the ’60s.

I called Saunders to clue him in on the criticism of his so-called criticism. He was astonished, in that he had not meant it as criticism.

I called Skinner to offer an apology for what I had written. Skinner didn’t seem unhappy, for which I was appreciative.

I will never forget Skinner’s words: “What’s wrong with having a home field advantage? And if you’ve got one, what’s wrong with using it?”

Nothing, I responded. Nothing at all.

I thought of Skinner, Saunders and Mr. Jackson after Cleburne’s games at Yellow Jacket Stadium against Waxahachie and Waco University.

As everyone knows, month-long rains turned the Yellow Jacket Stadium natural grass surface into a pig pen.

Waxahachie and University players were not accustomed to the intermittent mud. They play their home games on artificial turf.

E-mail communications received at the paper, and comments heard at those games, led me to believe that Waxahachie and University partisans were offended that Cleburne should be allowed to have such a home field advantage.

In the words of the great Skinner: “What’s wrong with having a home field advantage? And if you’ve got one, what’s wrong with using it?”

Here’s the thing.

A home field advantage is only a home field advantage if you think it is.

If you think you’re going to be adversely affected by the condition of the field, you most likely will be.

That’s called the power of negative thinking.

I have no doubt that the condition of the field played a part in Cleburne’s win over University and near-miss against Waxahachie.

What’s wrong with that? Artificial turf benefits Waxahachie’s and University’s exceptional team speed. Is that unfair? Of course not.

As an old fuddy-duddy, I proudly say that I prefer natural grass fields.

I think clods of dirt are meant to fly when football players prance down the field. That’s how football was meant to be played.

My favorite football memories are of teams battling in rain and hail and snow and muck.

I once covered a UT-Arlington football game at which snowballs were thrown on the sideline. Now, that’s football.

I have heard the argument, particularly lately, that artificial turf should be installed at Yellow Jacket Stadium.

The only thing I have against this is: Where does the money come from?

Last time I checked, the roofs of a number of Cleburne ISD structures needed repair. We’d better take care of those before we start prettying up the football edifice.

For that matter, I am hearing more and more people, and not just out-of-towners, complain about Yellow Jacket Stadium in general — that’s it’s old, unsafe, old, cramped for parking spaces, old, lacking sufficient bathrooms and decent dressing facilities, and especially that it’s old.

Look, Yellow Jacket Stadium has been old for a long time. It’s been around almost 70 years.

Yes, the parking is troublesome. That’s why I get to games a half hour before kickoff.

If you want a parking spot, get there before kickoff.

Are the visiting bleachers awful? Granted, the district should have replaced them years ago. But it didn’t, and now there’s no money to make that fix.

I’m amused whenever I hear someone say, “Build a new stadium.”

I typically reply, “With what? Cigarette coupons?”

Yellow Jacket Stadium is what you’ve got, and it’s probably going to be what you’ve got for at least another decade.

Those of you who dislike it need to start thinking of ways to live with it.

Unless you’re from another school and are insistent that Cleburne has a home field advantage. Because the more you think that, the more Cleburne will.

Of course, home field advantages can backfire. There was the night in 1981 that the Crowley stadium field resembled the Mekong Delta. Cleburne hopped, skipped and swam for 82 points.

Crowley had nothing.