The Lincoln Log

The west and east side bleachers at the Abraham Lincoln High School football stadium are deteriorating. Replacements will be built later this school year.

The wooden bleachers need to be replaced with a sturdier material such as metal or plastic, because the wood has weakened over time and will soon collapse. However, replacing the bleachers will cost a lot of money.

“We were trying to get a grant from the National Football League last year for $50,000 dollars, [but] we did not get it,” Athletics Director Kenyatta Scott said.

Although the NFL did not help finance the bleachers, the Alumni Association and the Parent Teacher Student Association assisted by donating $25,000 each.

The new bleachers are in the planning phase, and will be more maintainable than the current ones. They’ll also be able to withstand the conditions at Lincoln for the next several years. The materials used will either be plastic, metal, or wood as a last resort, as it is the most difficult and expensive material to maintain.

Although the idea has been set, the planning is still not completed. If the school is going to fix the bleachers, they still need to find out where the materials will come from and who will fix them.

“[The overall planning] has to take place before anything can be done,” Scott said.

The specific date of when the bleacher construction begins is still uncertain, but Scott is sure that the bleachers won’t be completed before Christmas of this year.

If planning is successful, the current students at Lincoln will be the first to use the bleachers.