Jack Yates alumni battle over new football field estimated at over $880,000 to construct
HOUSTON - Jack Yates High School alumni want a new football field, but there's a disagreement on how to get it done, and how much money to spend on it.
Alumnus Carl Davis says a new football field at the historic school would mean a lot to the students. A current fundraiser underway to see that happen has a goal of over $400,000. The field will cost an estimated $880,950.
Davis says the project is funded through private and community partnerships. The NFL Grassroots Foundation grant covers $250,000 and the Houston Texans pitched in a matching grant of another $200,000.
According to Change Happens, a local non-profit, the project was a community-led consortium that included the Jack Yates National Alumni Association, Houston Society for Change, and 88 C.H.U.M.P - an organization made up of friends and former classmates of Yates alum George Floyd.
The field will also be named after Floyd, after HISD voted unanimously on the decision.
"It's larger than the field," says Davis. "It's for the children of this school that we say we love. We can get it done, but if we work together. That's what we're asking to all of the Yates alumni, come together."
MORE: Jack Yates Field renamed in George Floyd's honor
Fellow alumni, like active community member Gerry Monroe, are calling foul on the strategy and the spearheader, Carl Davis.
"We were not informed properly that this was a matching grant," says Monroe. "We didn't know as a community, an alumni base, we needed to match the $450,000. You (Davis) should have had a community meeting to let us know."
Davis says the project, which has been in the works since October 2020, has to be completed by May 2023 or the consortium loses the grant money.
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Another stipulation for the grant money: the field turf has to be constructed by a company picked by the Houston Texans. Hellas is a contractor used by many high-performing high school football programs in Texas for their quality turf. Yates alumnus and former NFL player Quintin Smith says it's too expensive.
"One vendor is twice as much as the other vendor…now you have to raise twice as much money to do that," says Smith. "It wasn't told to everybody that needs to donate what was needed. Now all of a sudden, we're in scramble mode."
Despite the disagreement, both groups want to see a new field at Yates, a school that's produced over two dozen NFL players, Super Bowl Champions, and Hall of Famers. The current field lacks the resources needed to make student-athletes successful.