McAllen ISD sports fans will by fall have new scoreboards to help them keep score of their local teams.
The district has ordered nine new boards for football, softball and baseball games at McAllen High School practice field, Nikki Rowe and Memorial.
The district entered into a contract with Daktronics Inc. in early May to purchase the boards for $184,662. Athletic Director Paula Gonzalez told trustees last month that those funds would cover the boards, delivery, installation of the new scoreboards and disposal of the old scoreboards, which were damaged in Hurricane Hanna.
“Hurricane Hanna was definitely not friendly with our scoreboards, but we are super excited that we’re in the process of purchasing scoreboards,” she said.
Those old boards were not covered by warranties or insurance, Gonzalez said.
The district has already put in an order for the scoreboards, Gonzalez said. It will take eight weeks to create and deliver them and another four weeks to install them; they should be up around Aug. 9 and their installation shouldn’t impact spring training for McAllen athletes.
Gonzalez presented trustees with conceptual designs for the new scoreboards, noting that some fonts and colors may differ slightly in the final product.
“One of the differences between this one and the one that we currently have: what we do is we have a scoreboard with a separate pitch counter. This will be a scoreboard that will also include the pitch counter,” she said.
Trustees made two suggestions.
Board President Sam Saldivar suggested putting the district’s logo on the boards but left that decision up to Gonzalez. Other trustees noted that soccer and football games will be played on the same field and requested that signage be changed from “football” to “athletics.”
Gonzalez said that change could be accommodated.
