The tracks at Mission CISD’s two high school stadiums are getting upgraded. The board of trustees approved a resurfacing with an estimate of more than $1 million.
The courses at Tom Landry Hall of Fame Stadium and Veterans Memorial Patriot Stadium are just over 10 years old. According to Assistant Superintendent for Operations Rick Rivera, the useful life of a track and its materials is about eight years before the surface needs replacing. And according to Athletic Director Coach Thomas Lee, a self-named former track guy, the actual lifetime of a track is five years, especially for busy arenas like the ones in Mission.
“It’s not so much the safety, it’s just they get worn down,” Lee explained. “When your kids come home with shin splints, they’re going to get them whether they got a brand new track or not, but without a good facility and a good surface it’s going to be worse. But I know everyone tries to stretch their tracks and fields as long as they can.”
Administration intends to upgrade the track with its new surface before the track and field season begins in the spring. However, the project takes about a month to complete, and the district does not want to disrupt other groups that utilize the area.
“Once they start working on the tracks, the field is going to be off limits,” Rivera said.
The plan is to stagger the construction times of the two fields. And with Mission High School hosting a district track meet at the Hall of Fame stadium next semester, the athletic director wants construction to commence on the MHS track first and do it over the winter months to avoid disrupting soccer.
“I don’t want to [go through] this event of moving all our games to a new facility. You guys went through it for two years [for football], so I don’t want to do that to our soccer teams,” Lee said, referencing the construction fiasco at Tom Landry stadium. “I want to keep one field available. But I don’t want Mission Veterans to feel like they’re not going to get their track because my biggest thing is we need them for both schools, period.”
The athletic director said if construction at Tom Landry starts at the beginning of December, it should not affect the soccer season. But he worries the timeline could extend beyond the middle of January. To meet the coach’s timeline, the assistant superintendent for operations said the resurfacing project calls for “several special-called board meetings.”
“It’s extremely, extremely tight,” Rivera said.
The trustees approved the resurfacing at the Oct. 2 special meeting after they discussed the item at a same-day workshop. Administration recommended in-house professionals Javier Hinojosa Engineering to take on the project. The firm was the original engineer, so they already have the plans and specs for the tracks.
“Even if it’s delayed a little bit, we’ll make it work, we’ll figure out some way to do it,” the athletic director said. “But in the end it’s going to be what’s best for a lot of kids, not just our track kids.”
In addition to approving the project, the board had to approve a budget amendment. The money for the resurfacing will have to come out of the fund balance because the item was not in the construction budget for the 2024-2025 school year. Lee suggested developing a five-year plan for athletic facilities and equipment to avoid these circumstances in the future.
“Just like HVAC and all the others, it’s the same thing for athletics. We have to develop a plan for new pole vault pits, [etc] because all that stuff just gets thrown upon you and it’s hard because you’re not budgeting for certain things like that,” the coach said. “Those are things we’ve been talking about so that we’re staying ahead of the game.”