Oak Harbor Wildcats football fans found themselves in a strange environment Friday night, watching the home team take on the Mount Vernon Bulldogs in the cozy confines of the Coupeville High School field.

The Coupeville site ended a week of wondering where the Wildcats would play, with the early word being Anacortes would host the game. But anyone who went to Anacortes ended up watching an empty field.

The confusion started Tuesday, when the day many Oak Harbor High School football fans dreaded finally arrived.

Fifty-year-old Memorial Stadium was closed for football games until further notice, due to safety concerns regarding the wooden bleachers.

“In a nutshell I was told by structural engineers that the wood planks are over-stressed by 40 percent,” Oak Harbor Superintendent of Schools Rick Schulte said.

Schulte made the decision Tuesday afternoon to close the stands for football games based on the verbal report he received from engineers.

Why was the decision made only a few days before the home opener of the 2003 football season?

Schulte explained that every year the Oak Harbor School District has a risk management team come in and evaluate the condition of the stadium in late August to early September. This year’s annual inspection took place at the same time it normally does. Schulte said the risk management team typically requests the replacement of a few boards, but this year they suggested the school district have structural engineers evaluate the conditions. The findings by the engineers stated that not only the old boards were over-stressed, but so were newer boards, which had been replaced within the last few years.

“I was somewhat caught by surprise that the new planks would be considered over-stressed,” Schulte said.

As of now the boards are the only known problem, but Schulte is expecting a full comprehensive report on the structural elements of the stadium that may lead to more concerns.

“I expect it before the end of September,” he said.

The stadium has been in need of major repairs or replacement for years. Two bond issues that included money to pay for a new stadium failed at the polls, most recently last February.

Football will likely be the only sport affected by structural flaws in the stands because of the large crowds the sport can draw.

“In football games, especially with a good team and good weather, the stands could be really full,” Schulte said. The stands hold approximately 1,800 people.

Due to smaller crowds, the girls soccer team will be able to continue their season as planned and fans will continue to be allowed in the stands, unless the final engineers’ report states otherwise.

As a result of the closure, the football team was forced to play their “home” game against Mount Vernon at Coupeville High School last night. Coupeville and Anacortes were both possibilities for the alternative site.

“I just didn’t want to go to Mount Vernon to play our home game at their site, to give them the advantage,” head coach Dave Ward said.

By Wednesday, the preference was Anacortes, but that school pulled out of consideration due to concerns about the health of the Mount Vernon team schedule to play Oak Harbor. A number of Mount Vernon players were stricken by a mild form of meningitis, causing the postponement of the Bulldogs’ first game of the season.

So what’s all this mean for Oak Harbor’s remaining home football games in 2003?

Over the next two weeks, before Oak Harbor’s next scheduled home game with Arlington on Sept. 26, Athletic Director Jeff Stone will be working toward a solution.

“It gives us two weeks to try and figure out what we can do to accommodate a home game here,” he said.

One idea mentioned is hiring a head counter and allowing only a certain number of people into the bleachers. Other ideas include bringing in bleachers from throughout the district and placing them on the visitors’ sideline, while allowing others to stand behind cable restraints surrounding the field.

Before any of these ideas are acted on, Schulte along with the maintenance and grounds supervisor, the risk management group and the school district lawyer will have to make sure they are workable.

“We’ve got an obligation to make sure it is safe for the public,” Stone said.

If a solution can’t be found before the Sept. 26 home game, Oak Harbor will still have the option of playing at other area schools.

“Other schools are real sympathetic to what’s going on here and they’ve offered to host us and split the gate (ticket revenue), which is very kind,” Stone said. “But we don’t want to play 10 road games and we want to have our homecoming game here in Oak Harbor.”

Above all, coach Ward is concerned about how the current lack of stability will affect the team.

“It’s really nerve wracking for the players,” he said. “We’re supposed to try and get their attention so we can focus on the next game and what we have to do to get ready to play. All their questions are, ‘are we going to have a game, where’s it going to be, what about homecoming, are we going to have any more home games,’ and I don’t have any answers.”

The news that they wouldn’t be able to play their first home game at home shocked many of the Wildcats.

Senior quarterback John Lobbestael heard rumors in the week leading up to the Mount Vernon game, but he didn’t think much of the situation.

“I didn’t know it was actually going to happen,” he said. “I figured it would pass over or something.”

Some players were frustrated at the timing of the inspections, even though they are an annual occurrence, according to Schulte.

“It kind of ticked me off because they didn’t do it in the summer,” senior linebacker Ryan Lange said. “They come to us a week before the game and say, ‘oh, now we’re going to do inspections.’ They could have had this done at the beginning of the summer and we could have had new stands or they could have fixed them or whatever.”

Regardless of the current situation, one thing all the Wildcats seemed to come to a consensus on is that they are just glad to be playing football.

“I’d rather play at home, but I don’t really care what field we play on as long as we get to play the games,” Lobbestael said.

Senior Patrick O’Brien agreed.

“As long as I get to play,” he said. “It’s just going to be a more interesting year.”