Sports

Massillon High School Builds $6 Million Practice Facility

by Jon Azpiri | November 19, 2008 at 09:48 am

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The Massillon Tigers, a high school football team in Ohio, has built a $6 million, 80,000 square foot indoor practice facility. It's the first indoor practice facility built by a high school team in Ohio.

Massillon's Paul L. David Athletic Training Center was built by local businessman Jeff David in honor of his late father. The $3 million facility is part of a larger $6 million "DREAM project" that will include an 18,000-square-foot sports medicine building. Fortunately for local taxpayers, the project is being privately funded by the Paul & Carol David Foundation. Last year the foundation awarded 80 scholarships to Massillon students.

The 80,000 square foot building is actually 20,000-square-feet bigger than the indoor facility used by the NFL's Cleveland Browns.

Then there's the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals.

"Massillon High School is ahead of us," Bengals owner Mike Brown, the oldest son of Paul Brown, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer when asked about the indoor facility. "We don't have one.

The Massillon Tigers are known for having one of the most rabid fan bases in all of high school sports. The team was the subject of the fascinating 2001 documentary "Go Tigers", which profiled Massillon players and the town's obsession with its high school football team.

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kc8rpe

at 09:25 on November 20th, 2008

This is Paul Brown Tiger Stadium, built by the WPA in the 1930's.

kc8rpe has contributed a photo to this story.

Widge (not verified)

at 06:47 on November 25th, 2008

There is no way you can build that facility for $3 million. Someone is not telling the whole story here.

srobertson (not verified)

at 09:02 on January 15th, 2009

Correction Widge:

They are telling the truth. You misunderstood in that the pics you are seeing are of the original football stadium (not practice facility) with its' upgrades. Artificial sand turf was added in 88-89 and later the large scoreboard. I know since I graduated on that same field in 1989 as a proud Massillonian.