DC Athletics - Bad TV

The Friday night game between Dunbar and Coolidge High was broadcast nationally although a lot of people were not able to see it because their cable systems don’t carry ESPNU-TV. I watched the game via Direct TV and came away incredibly impressed with the young men on both sides of the ball.

Dunbar, the clear favorite with a few players headed to division one colleges proved too big, too fast and perhaps too talented for Coolidge. But a big part of me was pulling for the younger, smaller and less experienced Coolidge players who refused to give an inch throughout the hard fought contest.

Dunbar won the game but there were no losers on this night, except for maybe DC Public school officials, the Mayors and Council members over the years who have been going at public school athletic budgets with a sharp knife. Even though hundreds of thousands of dollars was committed, most of it in overtime pay, to get the Dunbar facilities ready for last week’s big game, the cameras and the ESPNU broadcasters showed us and the country just how bad our facilities are when compared to other high schools that have been featured on National TV.

The football field was marked; lines and numbers drawn and that isn’t always the case; but the water left by recent rain was so heavy that players were running around and not through the puddles. The grass looked horrible. The kind you see in a vacant abandoned lot. The football field was surrounded by a track that is not suited for running; in fact there is no track at any DC public school that meets minimum standards for an official track meet. I felt badly for the players Friday night and all the DC public school athletes who have gone before them under such terrible playing conditions.

The temperature inside Dunbar’s gym was more suited for a sauna when we toured the school last week to inspect the repairs. Lockers had been painted, showers repaired and the room where players had been using weights donated by a prison had been emptied in anticipation of a new set of weights. The DC Council has now appropriated tens of millions of dollars to correct deficiencies throughout the city’s public school buildings. The shame is that it has taken this long.

One Dunbar assistant coach told me that fixing conditions in the athletic departments should have been part of the Mayor’s Crime emergency. “We’re keeping kids out of trouble in here year round” he said.

The New Stadium, Now at What Cost?

Local journalists got a tour of the Nationals stadium construction site today. While it’s hard not to be impressed with how the $350 million dollar stadium is coming together after five months, a big question now looms over this project. How come the cost of building a couple of underground parking garages and one above ground garage has climbed so high so suddenly that the Mayor is asking the DC Council for another $100 million dollars? Clark construction says if the garages are to be ready by April, 2008, Opening Day, they’ll need approval in days, not weeks.

I may be wrong but it seems to me the Council, including the Democratic Mayoral nominee, Councilman Adrian Fenty has been backed into a corner. Forget the spending cap of $611 million for the entire stadium project. Approve another $100 million or abandon underground parking. If you believe the Mayor, that would mean losing all that above ground economic development in the form of shops, restaurants, bars, hotels and condos. This was to have been the District’s return for spending millions in public dollars on a new stadium for rich private owners. The new Nats owners, the Lerners want above ground parking. It’s safer, cheaper, can be ready on time and provides easier access to the stadium for the twelve hundred best paying customers. Word is a compromise between the Williams administration and the Lerners could see three temporary above ground lots built for opening day. With the new Mayor left to figure out what to do next to salvage Mayor Tony Williams plans of using the publicly funded stadium to spur an incredible entertainment and residential district along the Anacostia River that would generate millions of tax revenue for years to come. . Stay tuned. I’ve got a feeling that $100 million is just the beginning.