Let there be LIGHT

Mike Sciacca

For more than 25 years, the Ocean View High football program has

searched for a home-field advantage.

Home sites have varied through those years and bus routes

throughout the city and beyond have been constant on game day. The

football stadium at Huntington Beach High had been the main site

Ocean View called “home.”

But on the night of Sept. 19, Ocean View will finally know what

it’s like to have the home-field edge when the Seahawks host Tesoro

in a nonleague contest in the first official varsity “home” game in

school history.

The lights are in, the fence is up and the ticket booth is ready

to accept spectators.

“It’s about time,” said senior Brett Burda, a three-year varsity

player. “It’s inspirational to be able to play in front of a real

home crowd.

“You know, when we’d play our ‘home’ games on the road, it was

actually painful to have to be bused all the time. We’d also lose the

crowds when we had to play home games away from home. Now, we have to

walk a few feet from our own locker room to the playing field. It’s

going to be awesome.”

Seahawks Coach Harold Eggers said Karen Gilden, principal at Ocean

View, funded the majority of the stadium project and was a key

figurehead in getting the stadium put in place.

“We are all so pleased with the effort Principal Gilden and our

administration, boosters and community put forth in helping this

stadium project come to life,” Eggers said. “The kids are excited and

the coaches are excited. It’s just a nice feeling to walk out of the

locker room into your own stadium.”

Eggers said the initial set of stands -- set on the west side of

the stadium -- seats 1,500. He also said the school is looking into

raising funding to bring in additional portable stands.

Right now, the field sits unadorned. There are no yard markers or

chalk lines, no painted end zones or midfield emblems.

“We’d like to spruce up the field, like paint the goalposts and

have some type of Ocean View logo out there,” said Eggers, who added

he is still on the lookout for a company to paint the playing field.

But the stadium is there and the lights are ready to shine on

Sept. 19.

“It’s really exciting,” said Aaron Gonya, another senior and

three-year varsity performer. “We’ve been hearing about the

possibility of getting our own stadium for years and now it’s come

true. Now, we have a sense of home. The new stadium will allow this

group of seniors to go out with a bang.”