Finley Stadium is again helping kick off the area’s high school football season this week with its “Prelude to a Championship” that features three nights of two scrimmages apiece.
The home of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football and Chattanooga FC soccer will also host nine state title games in the annual TSSAA BlueCross Bowl in early December, but in between, there are no prep football games scheduled in the 20,412-seat facility that was built in 1997.
Where did they go?
Finley Stadium executive director Brian Wright believes the chief reason is pretty straightforward.
“It’s been so great seeing so many turf fields installed at these schools now,” Wright said this week. “That’s one of the things that was very evident when I moved back here. Every time it rained, we had five schools calling us looking for a place to practice because they didn’t want to ruin their grass fields before game days.