Home football games and other fall sporting events will continue at Cuyahoga Fall High School’s stadium this season even though the end zone bleachers are condemned.
However, some sports teams, including soccer and track and field, are temporarily moving to other area schools when work begins this fall for the district’s new middle/high school and multi-use athletic stadium.
There are currently no plans to repair or replace the unusable bleacher section in the stadium, said Kenny Johnson, athletic director for Cuyahoga Falls.
The condemned bleacher area previously housed the student section and marching band during home football games.
“The loss in seating capacity does not affect us too much. We can now seat around 6,000 individuals, which still makes us one of Ohio’s larger high school football stadiums,” Johnson said.
The end zone bleachers have not been in use since the 2020-21 academic year.
Problems in the section include chairs that need to be replaced, rotting wooden stairs and a foundation that needs to be rebuilt.
The Cuyahoga Falls School District is in the process of building a new middle and high school building, which will be built on the land currently occupied by nearby Bolich Middle School and Newberry Elementary School. Part of this plan includes a proposed new athletic stadium, which the Cuyahoga Falls Black Tigers will eventually call home.
Demolition of Bolich and Newberry will begin this fall, with a planned opening of the new facility for the 2025-26 school year.
“Because of the new stadium being built and opening in only a few years, we decided to dedicate those financial resources to fixing the end zone bleachers to other projects,” said Joe Bagatti, the director of business and operations for the Cuyahoga Falls Schools District .
“We wanted to replace these bleachers, but we believed the current seating capacity was okay to get us through these next few years,” Bagatti said.
Beginning this year, the marching band and student section will occupy the bleachers underneath the press box, with parents and visitors in the stands across the field.
This year’s Preview of Bands, a show featuring performances from local high school marching bands, was moved to Barberton High School’s Sharkey Stadium, after being held in Cuyahoga Falls for the past three decades. This move was due in part to the construction of the bleachers opposite the press box, not the condemned end zone bleachers.
“We are disappointed that we weren’t able to hold the band preview at Clifford Stadium this year, but we were not sure whether or not the construction for the bleachers would be completed in time,” said Bagatti.
Nearby Laybourne Field will also be torn down to make way for the new school building. This field currently houses the soccer and track and field teams. Those games will be played elsewhere after construction begins.
The Black Tigers will have their soccer matches at Laybourne through the end of August, before moving to Kent State’s Schwartz Center for the rest of the season.
The spring track and field teams will hold practices at other high schools, including Stow and Woodridge, according to officials. They will be the away team for all of their matches until the completion of the new stadium.