New RHS stadium policy aimed at safety
Photo by Josh McDaniel
The Ruston Bearcats run onto the field during the 2022 playoffs at L.J. “Hoss” Garrett Stadium, with the RHS student section behind them. A change in policy has been made to protect minors during football games. For more on high school football, see pages 6 and 12.
Coming off a historic state runner-up season, the Ruston High Bearcats begin the football schedule at home tonight against Warren Easton.
And in the interest of emphasizing safety, a new policy will be in place at L.J. “Hoss” Garrett Stadium when fans roll up to see their Bearcats in action.
This season’s home game rules include a restriction that no one under the age of 17, other than current RHS students, will be allowed to enter the stadium without an adult of at least 21 present. Minors are not allowed to be dropped off at the game.
“We’re not running a babysitting service on Friday night,” Principal Dan Gressett said. “Maybe that sounds harsh, but we’re just asking that you don’t drop off your kids and ask us to be responsible for them. We’ve gotten an overwhelmingly positive response to that from fans who are there every Friday night.”
For a high-end football program that often draws thousands of fans to its games, this policy change was made in the interest of trying to cut down on safety concerns by keeping kids supervised throughout the event.
“With the things you’re seeing going on around the country, we’re just trying to make it as safe as possible,” schools Superintendent Ricky Durrett said. “The more we’ve got people in seats, the better monitoring we can do. The less people congregated in one spot, the better.”
Gressett said in years past the school has had problems with groups loitering underneath the bleachers. That is also explicitly prohibited in this year’s policy.
He said Ruston High teachers and administrators who are on duty can reasonably keep tabs on the school’s own students because they know them, and they’re largely confined to the Cat Box. But other kids need to be accompanied by an adult.
“We’ll probably have to remove some people from the stadium if they can’t comply with what we’re trying to do,” Gressett said. “I hope it doesn’t get to that point.”
He said the school made this policy change after researching what other schools do and finding many programs already have a similar rule in place.
A full list of gameday policies can be found on Ruston High School’s Facebook page.
