Every North Atlanta student knows the feeling of coming home on a Friday after a grueling week of school excited to watch their mighty Dubs play football, dressing to fit the theme, meeting with friends, all to sit in thirty minutes of midtown Atlanta traffic on the way to the Midtown stadium. For being a major 6A school with over two thousands students and a booming football program, North Atlanta’s football facilities are extremely underwhelming. The students of North Atlanta deserve a stadium of their very own, one where they can band together as a unit to will their favorite team to victory.

While a new stadium would certainly be a major and expensive addition to the campus, it’s far from unreasonable. A myriad of other Atlanta schools have football stadiums of their own, and it’s time APS joined the mix. North Atlanta is the perfect candidate for the first APS school with its own stadium the school boasts, a thriving football team, stellar attendance at football games, and a passionate fanbase. A new stadium could benefit other schools as well, if the stadium is a success, it could pave the way for more APS schools to follow. Of course, there would be concerns about cost, but if our school can afford to put multiple 50 inch TVs on every floor (mind you they display nothing), they can afford to set aside some funds for a stadium. In the long term, it would also generate revenue for the school, with both ticket sales and concessions earning the price of the stadium over time. According to Athletic Business, a single high school football game can generate as much as 10 percent of a school’s athletic program, paving the way for future investments to make North Atlanta a better place for all students.

Speaking of improving student life, a NAHS-based stadium would be much more convenient for almost all students. For many, a drive to Midtown could take over 40 minutes, especially with downtown Atlanta’s mind-numbing traffic. While frustrating on school day mornings, traffic on a Friday night around North Atlanta is nearly nonexistent. Not to mention the area, midtown Atlanta at night can be a dangerous place, especially for the innocent freshmen. Upperclassman would benefit from a new stadium as well, they would no longer have to choose between paying a ridiculous $20 for parking, even more for an uber, or searching everywhere for free parking, only to end up at a location that’s a 15 minute walk away from the stadium, with risk of getting towed. If there was a North Atlanta stadium, fans could park in the same spot they occupy all week long at school. Students would also feel more at home at a North Atlanta stadium, seeing their wonderful school peaking over the stadium walls would motivate the student section to be even more boisterous.