David Kuykendall Stadium

Imagine being a 16-year-old high school football player, and having the chance to share the same field as your favorite professional team. It’s a reality for Independence high school senior lineman Jason Moore.

“We’ll play four home games at The Star,” Story said. “It’s an unbelievable facility, and they probably don’t realize how blessed they are to be a student athlete here in Frisco ISD.”

Independence High School will be one of the first two teams to play in The Star. It’s the new training facility and headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys – and it’s also the new home for Frisco’s eight football teams.

As part of Saturday’s quadruple-header, Nike is giving the Frisco team uniforms special treatment. Each school will sport a “color rush” uniform – wearing the same color head to toe. It’s something Nike does for its NFL teams.“We get to go out there and do something nobody’s ever done before,” he said. “The Star’s going to be up for a while. To be able to grow older and have kids, and be like: ‘I was one of the first people to play in that thing.’ That’s just amazing.”

“I’ve been a Cowboys fan since I was born,” Moore said. “I like the field; it feels like an NFL arena. I’ve been to AT&T Stadium and it feels similar to it. Locker rooms are magnificent; it’s a big step up from the places we were at before.”

While high school football teams across North Texas get set to kick off a new season Friday night, one district is waiting to play until Saturday morning.Known as ‘The Horseshoe’ or ‘The Shoe’ because of its unique shape, the Ohio Stadium was opened in 1922 and serves as the home ground for the state American football college team, the Ohio State Buckeyes. The premises of the stadium has a 55-room clubhouse, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a gymnasium, steam and sauna, and a squash court, making it a state-of-the-art facility. Shaped like a parachute, the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium is mainly used for football matches – it is the home stadium of the North Korea national football team. It has been designed to host multiple sports, including athletics. The Rungrado is the largest stadium in the world.

The world’s biggest cricket stadium – the Narendra Modi Stadium in the Motera area of Ahmedabad — is a refurbished stadium – earlier known as the Sardar Patel Stadium. It was inaugurated in 2020 and has the capacity to hold 132,000 spectators, making it the biggest cricketing venue ever. Overall, it sits second behind the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, which is the world’s biggest stadium, with a capacity of 150,000 . Opened in 1960, the Beaver Stadium is mainly used for college American football and serves as home to Pennsylvania State’s college football team, the Nittany Lions. It also hosts college athletics occasionally.Apart from its huge capacity, the Narendra Modi Stadium boasts of four dressing rooms, two gyms and a warm-up area. The new drainage system can make the ground match-fit in just 30 minutes and it also has LED lights instead of floodlights for day-night matches.The Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, also known as the Rungrado May Day Stadium, is the largest stadium in the world. It can officially accommodate 150,000 spectators.At times, football matches are also played while the record attendance (105, 491) was for a National Hockey League (NHL) game between Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.The Olympic Games has had a long history of hosting events in large capacity stadiums. The first Games, at Athens 1896, had its opening and closing ceremonies and hosted four sports at the Panathenaic Stadium, which can seat 80,000.

The second entrant from the USA in the list, the Beaver Stadium in the University Park of State College, Pennsylvania, is the world’s fourth-biggest stadium.Previously known as ANZ Stadium and Telstra Stadium, it was unveiled in 1999 – in time for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The Games’ closing ceremony saw an attendance of 114,714 people.

Crenshaw’s football team has won six state titles, with five of those coming since the 2005 season. Legendary coach Robert Garrett, who started coaching at Crenshaw in 1987, is a big reason why.Sports Illustrated labeled Long Beach Poly \”Sports School of the Century\” — and for good reason. It’s one thing to have run-of-the-mill players come from your school, but it’s another to have star NFL players come from your school.

Anyone who follows the NFL knows that Miami is a hotbed for players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School has produced not just NFL players, but Pro Bowl players such as Amari Cooper and Lavonte David.

Many different colleges have the rightful claim to “Running Back U,” but the moniker of “Running Back High” resides with the Miami Central Rockets. Willis McGahee, Devonta Freeman, Dalvin Cook, Najeh Davenport and Travaris Cadet are some of the backs who’ve made their way from Central to the NFL.

Evans is the only Ball graduate to make the NFL over the last dozen years because rising real estate costs in Galveston have forced many families to move out of the area. Since Ball High School is the only public high school in the city, it’s either Ball High or relocate, and many have chosen the latter option.While Miller has been dominant on every level, he never won a state championship. DeSoto got its one and only state title in 2016, when it won the Class 6A Division II state title with a team that included four future NFL players. The school produced only a handful of players over the rest of the century before experiencing a renaissance in the 2000s, with players such as Chris Redman and Michael Bush making it to the NFL. At one point, the school had Robert Woods, Marqise Lee and Paul Richardson all at wideout on the same team. As you would expect, that team dominated its competition to the tune of a 15-0 record and the school’s first football state championship.

St. Aug was one of many New Orleans high schools that temporarily shut down after Hurricane Katrina, but it reopened and has reclaimed its status as a football powerhouse.One of two military academies on this list, Hargrave started a post-graduate football program in the 1990s, but shut it down in 2013, and now only has a varsity team.The current NFL players from Tyler High are Tyus Bowser of the Baltimore Ravens, who likely would make anyone’s \”All-Name Team,\” and Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Greg Ward.High school football has become more than local news. Networks like ESPN and Fox Sports devote time and money to produce high school football broadcasts just as they would for college football games.

DeMatha is one of those rare schools that would place in the top 10 for most players in the NFL and the NBA. In addition to NFL players like Brian Westbrook and Cameron Wake coming from DeMatha, NBA stars such as Victor Oladipo, Markelle Fultz and Adrian Dantley also have walked the halls.

With high school football’s profile being raised, so has scouting, and college recruiters now spend as much time breaking down prospects as NFL teams do for college players. But which high schools are \”football factories\” like major college programs such as Alabama, Ohio State and USC? They often get those TV slots since their players will be playing in the NFL in a few years.

Dillard alum Isaac Bruce was chosen for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020. When Bruce retired in 2009, he ranked second all-time in receiving yards, and he also has given back to the school that helped make him an NFL star by serving as both a volunteer and an assistant coach at Dillard.

The city of Longview has produced 28 NFL players with 23 coming from the school of Longview. At least one of those players has been on a team every year since 1995, and three are currently in the league with linebackers Travin Howard, Pete Robertson and Pro Bowl offensive tackle Trent Williams.But now the school has fewer than 1,000 students, and that decrease in enrollment also has impacted the football program. The number of Yates alums to go to the NFL gradually has decreased since the 1990s, and just three have played in the league in the last 20 years.

South Florida nabs back-to-back entries on this list with St. Thomas Aquinas High. It is the largest Catholic high school in the country by enrollment, and a who’s who of South Florida residents have made it from this school to the NFL.The school also has produced some pretty good athletes in other sports, including Darryl Strawberry in Major League Baseball and Marques Johnson of the NBA and \”White Men Can’t Jump\” fame.Dorsey also has many notable graduates outside of football, including Baseball Hall of Famer Sparky Anderson, former MLB All-Star Chili Davis and reality television’s Judge Joe Brown.You always have to take high school national championships with a grain of salt since many of them are self-claimed. But it says something that Massillon Washington High School has more \”mythical\” national titles than any other school.

Players such as Leonard Fournette and Tyrann Matheiu have worn the purple and gold of both St. Aug and LSU, while alums such as BenJarvus Green-Ellis headed off to other colleges.Dorsey also had a coach, until the Browns fired Hue Jackson during the 2018 season. However, the school’s most famous former player is Keyshawn Johnson.

He then sued to enter the NFL early and ended up being a third-round draft pick by the Broncos, but was cut in the preseason and never appeared in an NFL game.Pro Bowl receivers Plaxico Burress and Michael Thomas called FUMA home, and the discipline that a military academy installs in students carries over from the classroom to the football field. In the early 2000s, Glades Central had the honor of having the most active players in the NFL. Now, it will have to settle for 11th place with their four NFL players. The strength of Dorsey High School’s NFL alumni is in its past, but the school still does have two active players in the league: Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Marvin Hall and Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Jaydon Mickens.Louisiana makes its second appearance on this list with the all-boys private high school known as St. Aug. The school starts at eighth grade to give students an extra year of high school life, and with its close proximity to LSU, many St. Augustine football players matriculate to Tiger Stadium.

The last NFL player from Evanston Township was Cecil Martin. He played five seasons and retired in 2003, and the school hasn’t had any players drafted in this millennium.Located about halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, Harding High has a monopoly on the area since it’s the only high school in the Warren City School District. One-fifth of Harding’s NFL players come from the same family as the four Browner brothers (Jim, Joey, Keith, Ross) help boost the ranking of the Harding Raiders.

Named after local businessman George Ball, Ball High has been around since 1884. The famous graduates of Ball come in different sizes and shapes, such as the long and lean Mike Evans and the short and stout Casey Hampton.Waco High may have the edge in the quantity of NFL players from the city, but it loses the battle in quality as the city’s most famous football player, LaDainian Tomlinson, spurned Waco High for University High.

The city of Compton had a demographic shift over the last 20 years, and the pipeline to the NFL has all but dried up. Only one player from Compton High has been drafted since 1992: Datone Jones. The Packers selected the defensive end in the first round of the 2013 draft out of UCLA, and he retired in 2018.

An article about high school football wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Texas and South Oak Cliff (SOC). However, SOC’s placement comes with a bit of a caveat. That’s because 25 percent of its NFL alumni were \”scab players,\” who only participated during the 1987 strike. Those six players combined to play just 20 NFL games and were never heard from again.

Located between Dallas and Austin, Waco is home to Baylor University, which is just a stone’s throw away from Waco High School. It is the city’s preeminent school for prospective football players as all other high schools in the city have produced just 18 NFL players.The first former DeMatha students to make it to the NFL were Garrett Ford and Brendan McCarthy in 1968, so much of the school’s success is rather recent. Student-athletes in Prince George’s County, Maryland, know that DeMatha is the best path to the NFL since it has produced twice as many NFL players as any other Maryland high school.

With high school football’s profile being raised, so has scouting, and college recruiters now spend as much time breaking down prospects as NFL teams do for college players. But which high schools are “football factories” like major college programs such as Alabama, Ohio State and USC? They often get those TV slots since their players will be playing in the NFL in a few years.All 210 of their students are required to participate in athletics, though in this day and age, it’s hard to field a competitive football team with that small of a pool of players.

However, it seems as though Miami Central put all its eggs into the running back basket as the school hasn’t produced many quality players at any other position.

Three All-American running backs seem to stand at the head of the pack who also made it to the NFL with Troy Davis (Iowa State), Kevin Smith (Central Florida) and Sedrick Irvin (Michigan State).The most notable player from Compton High is Marv Fleming, who won five NFL championships (four of which were Super Bowls) while playing for the Green Bay Packers and Miami Dolphins in the 1960s and 1970s. Seven-time Pro Bowler Torry Holt was this school’s most famous NFL alum, but defense has been the calling card at Hargrave as 24 of its 32 NFL players have come from that side of the ball. Yates was once one of the biggest high schools in Houston with over 3,600 students in the mid-1980s. The 1985 Yates team won the Texas state title and is considered one of the best high school football teams of all time.Ohio is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Buckeye State has a long tradition of high school football excellence. Canton McKinley High School plays its home games at the stadium that hosts the NFL’s Hall of Fame game, so these students get to pass by the Hall every time they take the seven-minute bus ride from their school to the stadium. Why hasn’t the school had any NFL players in over a decade? You can likely point to stricter academic requirements that went into place in the 2007-08 school year. Michael Irvin, Geno Atkins, Joey Bosa and Nick Bosa have played at Thomas Aquinas, which has won 11 state titles and three high school national championships.In fact, Thomas Aquinas has more current NFL players than many colleges in Power 5 conferences such as Washington State (14), Kansas State (12), Kentucky (12) and Purdue (11). Los Angeles is the only city with two top 20 schools on this list, and Crenshaw High gives L.A. its first entry. Pro Bowlers Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and Wendell Tyler are the most famous Crenshaw graduates while the Chiefs’ De’Anthony Thomas tops among active players. DeSean Jackson, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Willie McGinest are just some of the NFL players who have contributed to the 19 CIF-Southern Section championships for the Jackrabbits. The school even has surpassed numerous FBS programs in terms of NFL players produced, including South Florida (56) and Central Michigan (49).

Many different colleges have the rightful claim to \”Running Back U,\” but the moniker of \”Running Back High\” resides with the Miami Central Rockets. Willis McGahee, Devonta Freeman, Dalvin Cook, Najeh Davenport and Travaris Cadet are some of the backs who’ve made their way from Central to the NFL.

Longtime Redskins receiver Santana Moss played football there, although he was more known for his accomplishments in track and field. Moss won two state titles in the triple jump and another one in the long jump while just being third-team all-state in football.Throw in recent first-round picks Teddy Bridgewater and Artie Burns, and you can see why Miami Northwestern is one of three South Florida high schools to be named national champion over the last decade.

St. Thomas Aquinas has had an exceptional run of producing NFL players lately, with 15 players currently in the NFL, the most of any high school in the United States. Massillon won nine national championships with all of them coming between 1939 and 1961. Paul Brown won four of those titles as head coach before he went on to found both the Browns and the Bengals in the state of Ohio. You always have to take high school national championships with a grain of salt since many of them are self-claimed. But it says something that Massillon Washington High School has more “mythical” national titles than any other school.John Tyler High has had at least one player in the NFL every year since Earl Campbell made his debut in 1978. Campbell was nicknamed “The Tyler Rose,” and he led his high school to their first state championship in 1973 en route to being named Mr. Football USA.

Sports Illustrated labeled Long Beach Poly “Sports School of the Century” — and for good reason. It’s one thing to have run-of-the-mill players come from your school, but it’s another to have star NFL players come from your school.

\”He’s served the community very well,\” Los Angeles Chargers defensive lineman Brandon Mebane, one of Garrett’s former players in the NFL, told the Los Angeles Times. \”He’s helped a lot of kids become great men.\”Founded in 1856, Male Traditional High School is the oldest school on this list and the first high school established west of the Allegheny Mountains. Thus, there is a lot of history with this school, and 15 of its 28 alumni played during the first four years of the NFL’s existence (1920-23). Another Viking-turned-Eagle was 6-foot-8-inch receiver Harold Carmichael who, unsurprisingly, also played basketball at Raines and, surprisingly, played clarinet in the school band. That’s nine more than the number of Raines High graduates who were teammates on the Philadelphia Eagles for nearly a decade. Hall of Fame safety Brian Dawkins and All-Pro cornerback Lito Sheppard patrolled the defensive backfield for the Raines Vikings before doing the same for the Eagles.An article about high school football wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Texas and South Oak Cliff (SOC). However, SOC’s placement comes with a bit of a caveat. That’s because 25 percent of its NFL alumni were “scab players,” who only participated during the 1987 strike. Those six players combined to play just 20 NFL games and were never heard from again.

The school’s best player is Hall of Fame receiver Paul Warfield while the most notable player from Harding never actually played in the NFL. Former Ohio State star Maurice Clarett was a USA Today High School All-American at Harding before winning a national championship with the Buckeyes. Not to be confused with the Junipero Serra High School in Northern California that produced Tom Brady, this Junipero Serra High School is in Southern California. It has no Tom Brady, but it has plenty of players at the position that Brady likes throwing to. Most of the Massillon players played during the pre-merger era of the NFL with just five alums being drafted in the last 40 years. Pro Bowl linebacker Chris Spielman is the most prominent of that bunch, and Raiders cornerback Gareon Conley is the only active player from Massillon.

Equally as impressive as the NFL players Long Beach Poly has produced are the non-football players who have come from the school. Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn and Billie Jean King came from Long Beach Poly as did actress Cameron Diaz and rapper Snoop Dogg.

Entering the 2018 season, Male had the third-winningest high school football program in the nation, trailing only Valdosta (Georgia) and Highlands (Kentucky).

But Miami Northwestern is not without controversy. In 2006, the school’s football head coach and his entire staff were among those fired for covering up a sex scandal involving their star running back. Even though 98 percent of the players had nothing to do with it, the entire team was placed on probation for one year as a result of the cover-up.Glades Central’s best player is former Pro Bowl running back Fred Taylor, but this school specializes in sending wide receivers to the NFL. Santonio Holmes, Jessie Hester, Deonte Thompson, Kelvin Benjamin and Travis Benjamin (no relation) also have gone from Glades to the NFL, and many of them were teammates in high school. Dexter Manley is the school’s most famous graduate, and his NFL career mirrors that of Yates’ football program. Manley had a great run with the Redskins, won two Super Bowls in the 1980s and is the team’s all-time leader in sacks. But he fizzled out in later years and was banned for life in 1991 after failing his fourth drug test. There has been some amazing talent to come out of DeSoto High, and none better than two-time Super Bowl winner, Super Bowl 50 Most Valuable Player and seven-time NFL All-Pro Von Miller.Apart from those players, the school has a handful of notable names, the best player being former Cowboy Harvey Martin, who won the Super Bowl XII MVP award and was a four-time Pro Bowler.

This list of alums from Glenville High School reads just like the list of alums from Ohio State University. Heisman winner Troy Smith, Cardale Jones, Marshon Lattimore and Ted Ginn Jr. all took the path from Glenville to Columbus to the NFL.”He’s served the community very well,” Los Angeles Chargers defensive lineman Brandon Mebane, one of Garrett’s former players in the NFL, told the Los Angeles Times. “He’s helped a lot of kids become great men.”Fork Union deserves somewhat of an asterisk. Not only is it a high school, but it is also a post-graduate school that many kids go to before heading off to college.

The school also produced quarterback Jeb Blount, who played in the 1970s and finished his career with no touchdowns and seven interceptions. Surprisingly, that is not the record for most interceptions without a touchdown pass as Jim Musick posted a 0:15 ratio in the 1930s.The $70 million Legacy Stadium in Katy is the most expensive stadium in the state, according to Chron.com. While others have had a higher price tag, they also included facilities for multiple sports.

Houston ISD unveiled the $35 million renovation of Delmar Fieldhouse, which includes a basketball court and football stadium in 2017. It is one of the few state-of-the-art high school facilities inside the Houston city limits.The $53 million Children’s Health Stadium has the largest high school video board in Texas and serves Prosper ISD, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The $32 million Panther Stadium opened next door to the $146 million C.E. King High School as part of Sheldon ISD’s $285 million 2016 bond. The stadium is located in northeast Houston.

Guy K. Traylor Stadium is home to the Lamar CISD high schools in Fort Bend County. Even though it opened in the 1960s, the stadium can hold more than 10,000 people at full capacity.Planet Ford Stadium in Spring is shown at sunset before a high school football game. The $38.9 million stadium opened in 2019 with a capacity of 8,000.

Cy-Fair FCU Stadium debuted in 2006 as part of the $80 million Berry Center in northwest Houston. The Berry Center is also home to a basketball arena and theater.Galena Park ISD Stadium opened along with a new natatorium in 2002. Fans of North Shore in northeast Houston have seen several state championship-level teams at the $21 million stadium. Built in 1940 and renovated in 2014, the 18,500-seat Alamo Stadium in San Antonio has hosted state championships, college games and semi-pro football teams, according to the San Antonio Express News. “It’s so very humbling. All of these people coming here, it’s huge and it means so much to me,” Kuykendall said in an FISD news release. “The success in Frisco ISD is not from me but from the people that we have hired. They all have big hearts and are dedicated to doing what’s best for the kids and doing it the right way.”

There’s been a lot of growth opportunities for young people in Frisco ISD. You knew you could always count on him because he always put the kids first,”“I think it is extremely fitting and I can’t think of anybody else it should be,” Swinnea said. “He is the only full time athletic director that the district has ever had. He has seen the unprecedented growth of one school to 10 and just the fact that he has helped the district navigate that exponential growth in athletics is just a very fitting tribute to him.”

Starting off as the head football coach at Frisco High School in 1993, Kuykendall became the district’s athletic director in 1999 when Frisco ISD was stil a one high school district.“Through Coach K’s organization and leadership, there’s been a lot of growth opportunities for young people in Frisco ISD,” Dr. Rick Reedy said in an FISD news release. “You knew you could always count on him because he always put the kids first.”

Campus athletic coordinator and head football coach Matt Swinnea believes that Kuykendall’s humility does not pay enough credit to the contributions he has made to Frisco ISD.

“We’re always going to have that mentality here in Frisco ISD, where we’re going to create an environment in which you can play as many things as you want to play,” Kuykendall said in Focus. “Whether it be in band, or theatre, or multiple sports or whatever, we’re all about creating the opportunity.”After decades of leading the way for Frisco ISD sports, athletic director David Kuykendall is retiring. However, his name will not be forgotten as Frisco’s original football facility, once referred to as Memorial Stadium, is now David Kuykendall Stadium.