By: Elijah Smith
The 2016-2017 academic year brought a big change to athletics at Missouri Western – one that can be seen from up to 10 miles away. Spratt Stadium, Western’s football field that was in desperate need of some TLC, got a facelift over the spring and summer of 2016, including a massive new video scoreboard.
Director of Athletics Kurt McGuffin said the new stadium is a step in the right direction for Missouri Western athletics.
“For where we came from, what we had before, whether it was a year ago or 20 years ago, Missouri Western’s grown up quite a bit,” McGuffin said.
McGuffin said that athletics is one of the few academic departments that has to generate its own revenue and doesn’t get much help from state funding. That need to produce revenue was one of the factors that went into building a new football stadium. According to McGuffin, the stadium and video board were paid for through substantial private and corporate donations, as well as bonds that will be paid back over time, and no student money went into the project.
Senior offensive lineman Travis Anderson has played on both the old and new fields, and said the stadium improved the experience for both fans and players.
“The renovations were surreal from our end,” Anderson said. “It truly felt like a Division I atmosphere. We are incredibly lucky to have the facilities we do.”
McGuffin said one of his favorite aspects of the makeover is that the field itself is now 32 feet closer to the main grandstand, and that newfound proximity to the fans makes the atmosphere electric.
“You go into arenas or stadiums, and what do you really notice? You notice the sound – whether it’s fan-generated, or sound-system generated,” McGuffin said. “It’s just an experience that, I think, touches everybody that comes to an event here.”
One of the largest parts (literally) of the new stadium is the custom-built 78-foot tall, 138-foot wide high-definition video scoreboard, the second largest in Division II athletics. Powered by a production crew about a dozen strong, including several Missouri Western students and as many as five camera operators, the video board offers fans an experience similar to an NFL television broadcast.
Director of Athletic Communications Ryan Menley calls the shots from the control booth. He said the goal is to have the fans watching the scoreboard more than the game itself.
“We treat it like a television broadcast,” Menley said. “You’re getting fans that are in the stadium a different look, and kind of a unique look. We’re taking them right in the middle of the action, on the field, in the huddle, in the middle of it.”
Menley said he has received texts from people that were as far away as Buffalo Wild Wings in northern St. Joseph that could see the glow of the video board lighting up the night sky.
“When it’s on, you can see it,” said Menley with a smile.
McGuffin said he hopes the video board, paired with a beautiful football stadium, will ignite even more interest in the various athletics programs at Missouri Western. He and Menley both say they have heard a lot of positive feedback from those in the community, even from the Kansas City Chiefs during their summer training camp.
“They say it’s top notch,” McGuffin said. “And it is. For our level, it’s about as good as you can get in this league. . . in the end, I think it’s about everything we wanted.”
