Unique Venues: Springfield Football Stadium

In the early 1980s, when Springfield (Tennessee) High School (SHS) was moved from its building on 5th Avenue to its new location on Highway 76, it did so without an imminent plan to build an on-campus football stadium.

Instead, the Yellowjackets continued to play at Boyce Smith Field – named for the school’s legendary former principal, coach and 1983 National High School Hall of Fame inductee – busing two miles between venues for every home game.

Those logistics would remain unchanged for the next 35 years until Walter McCauley, owner of a 177-acre farm near the high school, donated 10 acres for a new “hive” to be constructed on SHS grounds. As a true donation, McCauley was not paid for his contribution, but it’s been reported that he can always get free game tickets whenever the need arises.

The stadium, which features a Bermuda 419 grass playing surface and a seating capacity of 2,350, was opened and dedicated on August 25, 2017, and was christened in style with the ‘Jackets 34-14 victory over Clarksville High School. From there, Springfield nearly turned a memorable first season in its new facility into an unforgettable one, advancing all the way to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Class 4A state championship game.

What sets the Springfield football stadium apart, however, isn’t its short history or the lineage of players and coaches who’ve come before; it’s the field upkeep, both in quality and approach.

Dustin Wilson, who has been Springfield’s head football coach for all eight seasons in the new stadium, took on the dual role of dedicated groundskeeper from Day 1, and quickly turned field maintenance into a way for his coaches and players to form a deeper connection.

While some of the particulars may have changed in the past five years, Wilson’s weekly preparation strategy was detailed in a November 2019 article written by “The Connection,” a local newspaper.

For starters, Wilson mows and trims the field three to four times per week, and also paints the yard-lines that span the entire width of the field to ensure they are straight. Assistant coaches paint the midfield logo – a large circle painted gold with Springfield’s block-letter ‘S’ in the center – along with the script “Jackets” on opposite 25-yard-lines. Finally, the players stay after practice on Wednesdays and Thursdays to paint the field numbers and the hashmarks, and return to fix divots with sand prior to Saturday morning film-study sessions.

“They don’t get to start (on Fridays) if they stay (after practice) or anything like that, said Wilson of his players in “The Connection’s” article. “It’s just about helping out. They take pride in this too. They like how our field looks.”

In recent seasons, Wilson has taken the field painting up yet another level, adding “honeycomb” designs in both endzones to solidify the signature look within “The Nest,” a popular nickname for the stadium.