This season and from now on, the only bangs and booms that will happen during the Elizabethton High School football games will be on the field during hard hits.
Cyclones football games will no longer feature firework displays after the playing of the National Anthem during home games.
School officials decided to stop the colorful and loud displays as a way to protect the new artificial turf at the Citizens Bank Stadium. The turf could be damaged by embers from the fireworks, EHS Athletic Director Mike Wilson said.
“We were not trying to just get rid of fireworks, that is not the purpose,” Wilson said. “We are trying to protect the new field from being damaged.”
A quick Google search will reveal that fireworks do on occasion cause expensive damage to field made of artificial turf. This year on the Fourth of July, the Hebron High School football field in Texas was damaged right in the middle of the field after fireworks were set off on the artificial turf, according to a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Last year, the Seattle Park and Recreations left the lights on late into the night at many of its artificial turf fields in hopes of discouraging people from lighting fireworks on the field during Fourth of July celebrations. The extra caution came after fireworks caused $10,000 in damage to one of the fields.
The firework displays at Brown-Childress Stadium is something that Cyclones fans have enjoyed for 10 years, Murrel Mullins, the man behind the fireworks, said. Over the years, Mullins has collected money from many sponsors to put on the shows, which would cost roughly $125.
Mullins, who feels that the fireworks always brought something special to home games and playoff games, said that his friend Jeff Bradley would wire up the fireworks so they would go off in time with the marching bands playing of the National Anthem.
“The fireworks are something that just caught on and made the home games special,” he said.