Stadium Video Boards Popping Up at High Schools

We’re used to seeing those big video boards at college and pro sports arenas.
But now they’re popping up at high school football stadiums.
Bradley Central and Calhoun have installed the jumbo screens on their scoreboards, and both head coaches love how the video boards engage the crowds on Friday nights.

Said Bradley Central head coach Damon Floyd:”When you walk into Bear Stadium, and this is a pretty special place to us. We sit down in that hole. Six-thousand people. Then pre-game you get up there, and the video board is playing. It’s a pretty special place. It adds to the environment on a Friday night at Bear Stadium.”
Bradley Central coach Damon Floyd admits he doesn’t see the video board much during the game, but it was hard not seeing them when the Bears hit the road.
Said Floyd:”Well I think the best thing that happened to us from a facility standpoint is when we got put in the Super 32 (classification) across the state of Tennessee. So we were traveling to facilities like Dobyns Bennett, Science Hill, and Maryville. Those schools, they all have multi-million-dollar weight rooms. They all have video boards. They have turf fields. Since we got put in that region, we’ve now built our own weight room. We got a video board. Still working on the turf field, but when you see those other facilites, and the amount of money that those programs invest, then it made the people in Bradley County say hey, we’ve got to do something.”
Calhoun has a had a video board at their stadium for quite some time.
Said Calhoun head coach Clay Stephenson:”With this, being able to broadcast different businesses in the community. Being able to show their commercials. Show kids on there. We do the national anthem. We have a different military person up there every day or every week that has gone to school hear.”
And since Yellow Jacket fans love their cowbells, they play the famous Saturday Night Live cowbell sketch on their video board.
Said Stephenson:”Yeah it’s still there. That’s the thing. Every year there’s something different that they throw in there that the students kind of come up with and come up with on their own. Some things you have to throw out because we don’t like.”
The video boards not only get the crowd involved but the students as well.
Said Floyd:”We do have a class that students are working on Friday nights. Obviouisly we have a teacher, Glen Shroyer, who is over our media department, he makes sure everything runs smoothly.”
Said Stephenson:”Everything you see up here is produced by students and run by the students on Friday night. So it has led like I said to some people going on and doing video production in college that they wouldn’t have gotten to, if we didn’t have this.”