TodayAn admirable yet questionable PIAA decision
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Photo courtesy of State College Area School District
Memorial Field in State College will host the PIAA Class AAAA semifinal between Bethel Park (14-0) and Wilson (14-0) on Saturday at 1 p.m.
We know why the PIAA selected Memorial Field in State College as one of the PIAA Class AAAA semifinal venues.
With District 3 at the top of the bracket, it made more sense to send Wilson, the District 3-AAAA champion, to a site that’s about an hour closer than Mansion Park Stadium in Altoona, the field that has hosted the AAAA ‘Western Final’ since the PIAA sent the 3-AAAA champion to the western region of the bracket.
In the case such as the District 3 winner playing the District 7 champion, the PIAA attempts to find a venue that is a geographic midway point because the two districts aren’t congruent.
When the representative from District 3 is a team from the Mid-Penn, Mansion Park is the best choice. Altoona is around 2 hours, 30 minutes from both Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.
But with the District 3 champion hailing from suburban Reading, that trip stretches to a 3 hour, 15 minute hike for the Wilson contingent whereas Bethel Park has a 2 hour, 18 minute trip to Altoona.
Sending Wilson to State College for the game, which kicks off at 1 p.m. Saturday, lops 43 minutes off travel time for the West Lawn school. Coincidentally it forces Bethel Park to travel an extra 48 minutes to reach the field.
But travel time isn’t the issue. The PIAA trying to select a better site for Wilson is understandable. After all, District 3 is at the top of the bracket this year, so why should the representative have an extra hour of travel than the team at the bottom?
The problem is that Memorial Field might not be equipped to handle a game of this magnitude.
Two weeks ago the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Bethel Park sold a tad more than 3,000 tickets for the team’s WPIAL (District 7) championship game with Gateway at Heinz Field.
Saturday night at Hersheypark Stadium, paid attendance for Wilson’s 35-7 win over Cumberland Valley in the 3-AAAA final was announced at 4,824.
For the sake of space and keeping your attention, we’ll say half those fans (2,412) were cheering for Wilson and say Bethel Park sold exactly 3,000 tickets for the WPIAL final. If the same amount of fans make the trip to Memorial Field, that is a total of 5,412 fans. That doesn’t include the local fans in the area that could turn out to see a state semifinal in their backyard.
Plus, there needs to be room for the bands.
But even a minimum crowd of 5,412 is more than the 4,400 seat facility in Centre County can hold. Had the 3-AAAA final been played there, 424 people would have not been afforded a seat. The seating capacity of Memorial Field is according to the State College Area School District’s Web site.
Down Interstate 99 in Altoona, Mansion Park and its 10,400 available seats will sit empty Saturday afternoon. Mansion’s capacity is according to the Altoona Area School District’s Web site.
Press facilities could also become an issue as the press box at Memorial Field is considerably smaller than the one at Mansion, which comfortably hosted the PIAA state football finals from 1992 to ‘97.
Parking isn’t great at either facility but when Memorial Field hosted the PIAA Class AA quarterfinal between Grove City and Tyrone in 2004, one didn’t have to try hard to find horror stories regarding parking and available seating.
Again, don’t get us wrong, it’s commendable that the PIAA wanted to be fair to Wilson, but in turn it might have caused some major headaches as far as the fans are concerned come Saturday afternoon.
