New lights installed at Niwot High football field

This past month, a noteworthy change came to Niwot High School's football field. The St.Vrain Valley School District installed new lights to allow for later practice times and, ultimately, after-dark home football games.

Niwot High School is one of three in the district that received new light installations, the other two being Longmont's Skyline and Silver Creek High Schools. According to Athletic Director Joe Brown, the three high schools were the only ones in the district that didn't have lights. Currently, Longmont, Silver Creek, Skyline and Niwot high schools share Everly-Montgomery Field at Longmont High School, resulting in "home" games scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

As expected, the players are excited about the change. Running back Easten Leatherwood said, "I've played for Niwot my whole high school career. I'm ready to be under the lights in our own field. Before we didn't have lights, we'd be getting out of practice time right before it got dark, and that would cut our practice time."

Senior quarterback Ayden Bartko hopes the lights means more significant facility changes are in the school's future. "I'm so excited for our class and future classes to experience playing under the lights on Friday nights," he said. "Niwot has been around for a long time and we never had lights before now. They're a first step in getting a nice stadium. I believe in the next few years, Niwot will have one of the most unique and amazing stadiums in the district."

Though the lights have been installed, they're not yet ready to shine. That may happen in another month or so, by early November. According to Brown, "They're not plugged in yet. We've still got some electrical work and stuff to finish up. The same contractor is doing all three schools. They haven't scheduled the final walkthrough with the electric company yet in case something caused a delay in one area or another," he said.

Often, with installations such as this one, light pollution is a concern for neighbors. When asked, Brown was only aware of one question from the public asking about the lights. He could not identify what person or group made the inquiry.

The new lights at Niwot and the other schools are different from other football field lights as they're designed to minimize light pollution concerns. They feature state-of-the-art, directional LED bulbs that have a shield to limit trespass light to areas beyond the field. In addition, the location of the field in relation to the building may also ensure that the new lights aren't intrusive to much of the area.

With the football season shifting to fall instead of spring, it is not likely the Niwot field will be ready for after dark games this season. It might have been ready if the football season had been delayed until spring, but as things stand now, night games are something for the community to look forward to next year.

Brown echoed that thought. "Football games are a great opportunity to bring a hometown feel to things," he said. " When we're able to get those lights going and host a couple of games a year here, we could really tie in the Niwot community with events at the High School, some things downtown. Once we're done with the restrictions from Covid-19, I think that would be a great community-building opportunity."

Outside of football, the lights should benefit students in other sports, such as track, and should help make schedules at the end of the day run more easily. Currently, athletes have to rush from class to make practice, so they can be done before dark. Now they can have buffer time at the end of the day to meet with teachers or work on school projects if they need to.

The lights represent a significant and greatly anticipated change at the school. Students and staff look forward to a crisp fall night in 2021 when players run onto the field amid a traditional high school football scene. They envision the band playing, a crowd cheering, and pom-poms waving, all of the activity taking place under the new light installation.