Corbin plans Sept. 14 open house for renovated football stadium

If you have been wondering what the more than $9 million renovation of Corbin’s Campbell Field/Nick Denes Stadium will look like when it is largely finished but you don’t want to wait until the opening game on Sept. 15, then you are in luck.

The community will be able to walk through the facility on Thursday, Sept. 14, which is the day before the opening game.

“We will have a little pep rally, open house type of get together, and will let the community come and walk through and let the community see what is going on,” Corbin Superintendent Dave Cox said during a recent Corbin Board of Education meeting.

A committee composed of about a dozen people is currently at work planning a ceremony for the opening game that will also commemorate 100 years of football at Corbin High School in addition to the stadium opening.

Cox noted that all of the amenities won’t be done in time for the first game on Friday, Sept. 15, against Frederick Douglas High School, but the field and stadium will be ready to open.

For instance, the children’s area won’t be complete by then because construction crews are having to use that as a staging area for equipment and so forth.

Officials are hoping to have the children’s area of the stadium completed by playoff time.

Turf installation is currently underway.

“We appreciate the community’s patience with all of the traffic over there,” Cox said noting that the road between the stadium and the city pool had to be shut down recently to accommodate stadium construction work.

Cox noted that the Sept. 14 event will also serve as a dry run for the new video scoreboard.

There is a class at the high school, which will focus in part on doing some graphics for the scoreboard.

“We will give some kids, who want to make a little extra money working at night, a chance to work with our score board, to work our cameras and to utilize all the bells and whistles this scoreboard has,” Cox added.

After the playoffs, construction on phase two of the project will begin, which includes a new and expanded press box and renovation of the visitor locker room. After phase two of the project is complete, the video scoreboard at the stadium will be able to show live replays.

Because of the stadium renovations, this year’s Cumberland Falls Pigskin Classic will be held at the University of the Cumberlands football stadium.

Corbin officials emphasized that the money being used for athletic program renovations is funding that can only be used for building projects.

Also, substantial work was done to academic facilities in the years prior to the district starting athletic facility renovations, Cox added.