KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lincoln Prep's football team will have a place to call home soon.
A new $3.5 million, 1,000-seat stadium is schedule to be completed by September, just in time for the 2019 football season.
Kansas City Public Schools and Lincoln Prep school administration were on hand for a surprise visit Monday from the Kansas City Chiefs as members of the defensive line unit practiced with the Lincoln Middle School flag football team.
During the event, officials opened the gymnasium doors to show off the field's progress.
Several bulldozers sat idle on a large swath of open field immediately behind Lincoln Prep, where the under-construction football field and track sat in the rain.
The weather did nothing to dampen spirits. District athletic director Dr. James Sanders discussed the pride Lincoln Prep received derived from the project.
"Every one of our high schools will have their own field," he said. "It used to be when you said you're having homecoming, you have to pack up and go all the way across the city. Every school (now) has their own home field. What's really special about the Lincoln field, we'll have the only blue turf in the metro area."
It may be the only blue field in a several hundred mile radius.
"So, it's gonna be special for the kids," Sanders said.
Lincoln Prep had been the only school in the district without its own field. The football team has played at the Interscholastic League Stadium at Southeast High School.
Miami Dolphins defensive end and Lincoln Prep alumnus Charles Harris donated $100,000 toward the project, helping bring the long-held dream of building a football field at his alma mater come true.
Harris, a former first-round pick from Mizzou, attended the groundbreaking last July.
"(Lincoln Prep) is one of the original schools (in Kansas City) that only blacks students could attend," Sanders said. "In its heyday back in the 1940s, '50s and earlier, kids even from Kansas came to Lincoln College Prep. It has a historical past and now an opportunity for the future (with this field)."
