Trojan tunnel walk

FAIRFIELD — A group of volunteers restored part of Trojan Stadium in Fairfield just in time for the Trojans’ first home football game of the season Friday.

For as long as the high school has stood on East Broadway Avenue dating back to 1939, the Trojan football team has entered the stadium through a tunnel from the high school, under the west-side bleachers. In recent years, the tunnel fell into neglect, and became cluttered with storage items from around the district such as old water heaters.

“The district hasn’t had the funds to keep it up,” said Fairfield resident Jim Weaton, who has taken the lead on the project. “Our first step was cleaning the tunnel to see what we had.”

Weaton, the father of the Trojans’ football coach Nate Weaton, said he and some friends from the school’s booster club got together for coffee one day and remarked on all the things students have missed due to the pandemic during the last year and a half. The boosters wanted to do something to raise their spirits, and they hit upon the idea of sprucing up the tunnel into Trojan stadium.

The plan was to clear all the miscellaneous items that had piled up over the years, put fresh paint on the walls, illuminate the hallway with lights and clean an old locker room so the team could meet there during halftime instead of having to travel a much longer distance to the weight room in the high school. Weaton said that by the time the team gathers in the weight room, it’s about time to turn around and head back for the second half. Not only that, but Weaton said the finished product will include “flame lights” and a fog machine for the team to run through. He said it won’t be quite up to par with a college football team’s entrance, but it will be close.

“We’re trying to create some inspiration for the kids, give them something coming out of this pandemic that they can be proud of,” Weaton said. “We’re recreating the magic.”

The tunnel will have a series of stenciled quotes and inspirational messages from 30 famous football players. Weaton said the volunteers were not satisfied with fixing the tunnel. They noticed there was work to do around the stadium and some landscaping on the south side of the high school.

“Operation Restore the Tunnel” quickly morphed into “Operation Restore the Stadium.”

“We [volunteers] thought, ‘This is a source of community pride. This is where the community gathers on Friday nights, so let’s enhance the beauty of the stadium,’” Weaton said. “This is a beautiful stadium. We’re just helping the district clean the place up.”

Twenty-seven volunteers met at the stadium for two weeks at the end of August, working feverishly to finish the tunnel, the locker room and the landscaping before the first game.

“The community is coming together to save the district not only labor costs but also material costs,” Weaton said. “Paint alone has cost us about $2,000.”

Weaton estimates the cost of the project will be between $5,000 and $10,000, and that several businesses and individuals have reached out promising to help with funding.

“I don’t think raising funds will be a problem, because this is a very generous community,” Weaton said.

One of the projects involved cutting down the tall grass that had grown on the hill on the stadium’s south side. Weaton said the area looks much nicer now.

Fairfield Activities Director Jeff Courtright said the hillside, though freshly trimmed, will not be an area for spectators to watch the game because it’s too steep.

Visitors will notice another significant change to the stadium Friday night, and that is the absence of the visitor’s side press box. The press box, which contained the concession stand, was torn down in early August after it had fallen into “pretty bad shape,” Courtright said.

“The hope is to be able to rebuild it in the future,” Courtright said. “For this season, visiting spectators will need to walk around to the home side for concessions and bathrooms. This is a pretty common occurrence at other high school stadiums.”