Butler to move Friday’s home football opener to Olympic High

Butler High athletics director Courtney Paschal told the Observer that the school will move Friday’s season-opening football game to Olympic High.

Butler’s field has had irrigation issues for three years, Paschal said Saturday morning, and this summer’s lack of rainfall had made it difficult to get the field in shape. Butler officials had been watering the field by hand and fertilizing it. Paschal said the field still didn’t get enough water for a good covering of grass, so the school sodded parts of the field two weeks ago.

Paschal said the sodded areas are still not level and mature enough for a close mowing.

“We’ve got some raised edges,” she said, “where kids may turn an ankle on. We just want to be safe.”

Olympic High has a recently renovated stadium with a turf field. The change means Butler will have five home games instead of six, beginning with a home game with Western Alamance Sept. 4.

Paschal said losing the Olympic game would especially hurt concessions, which aid Butler’s booster club, but wouldn’t hurt her athletic department’s bottom line quite as much because it is an endowment game.

In 1993, the N.C. High School Athletic Association created these optional games, one per sport, to help schools raise money. The state receives 25 percent of the gross revenue and the competing schools share the remainder. In a regular game, Butler would keep concessions and the gate.

Paschal said next year’s Olympic game, scheduled for Olympic, will be held at Butler.

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This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Butler to move Friday’s home football opener to Olympic High."