![Hosting the SCLA Casptone Mentor Dinner outside allowed for more attendees on September 27, 2021 at Silver Creek. This event would’ve usually been held inside. According to Lauren Kohn, a SCLA 12 teacher, “If we have a higher number of people, as long as we can host the event outside, then that seems to be keeping every[one] safe”.](https://schsnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/sxMAIGbSYGodZkqmrvTi5YWcJ1ssWA08ApkeMLpp-900x675.jpeg)
What words come to mind when you think of “Home Field Advantage”? Do you think about pride? Spirit? Energy? Excitement? With the new stadium that’s getting built at Silver Creek, students will get to experience all of those things.
In July of 2026, a brand new stadium surrounding the football field will be installed, and it will be completed by the start of the 2026-2027 school year. This is going to be a very big, positive change for Silver Creek. Not only will it affect football players and the marching band, but it will also affect the students, friends, and family members that attend home football games.
This is a big project. With the total cost at around seven million dollars, many new additions will be made to the property. This includes possible new buildings, fence and concrete work, a press box, and the bleachers themselves. On the home side, there will be room for about 1,600 people.
Silver Creek principal Erick Finnestead is very excited about this development.
“We’ll be able to have awesome events here,” he said.
With this new stadium, Silver Creek High School will now be able to host all sorts of events here that we couldn’t before. This includes track meets and band events. Most importantly, we’ll no longer have to host home football games at Longmont High School.
“When kids can host these things at their school, they can feel proud about the facility that they have,” Finnestead said.
Finnestead agrees that the stadium will also greatly affect school spirit, pride, energy, and excitement.
“There’s just such a sense of pride in playing at your own homeschool and having your friends up in the stands,” he says. Having games at Creek will also hopefully increase the size of the student section, which will in turn, lead to more school spirit and better energy at games.
The football team is going to be impacted by this as well. Jeremy Mercer, the head football coach, is enjoying his second season at Silver Creek.
“The thing I enjoy most is just the relationships that I get to build with people, whether it’s the players, the coaches, or the administrators,” he said.
There’s about 70 football players in the program this season, and it takes an extra hour to hour and a half to bus the players to and from Longmont High School (LHS) on home game days. A lot of time will be saved once the stadium is in. The team might also enjoy playing with a bigger crowd at their games.
“I think our kids are really going to feed off the crowd’s energy and excitement and really make this place our own,” Mercer said.
Silver Creek Marching Band will also experience positive changes with time, cost, and other things. On home game days, they rent a U-Hall truck to transport equipment to and from LHS. Truck loading by itself takes around an hour to an hour and a half and it’s a very complicated process. That will be an extra cost and time commitment that they won’t have to worry about in the coming years.
Brooklyn Olivier, a junior and a percussionist in the marching band, says that since they practice on the field here at Creek, being able to perform here as well would make their performances better. One reason for this is an important logo on our field that isn’t on LHS’s.
“We don’t have that logo and a lot of people rely on it during their performance to do their drill and to hit their dot,” she said. “I just feel like our performances might be better on that field.”
In addition to football and marching band, Silver Creek students who attend the games will also be impacted. Clare Gaddis, senior and student body president this school year, is sad to be graduating before the build but excited for younger students.
“I think it’s going to do a lot and bring a lot of school spirit because we’ll feel more at home [than at Longmont High School]” she said.
On top of that, because many Silver Creek students live much closer to Creek than they do Longmont, having a stadium at Silver Creek will hopefully increase the likelihood that students want to attend the football games.
“Having it closer to home would bring a lot of spirit and also accessibility because a lot of students can walk to the stadium,” Gaddis said.
This new stadium is a big change for everyone involved with Silver Creek, and the excitement is building.
“I’m just excited to grow Raptor Nation and have a great home field environment with amazing views of Long’s Peak and the front range mountains,” Mercer said.
