Pike Road Light show: Here's how the Patriots' stadium rivals the capabilities of Alabama and Auburn's

A season ago, the Pike Road Patriots were staring at a blank canvas. The football field had not yet been completed, they played their home games at different venues across the city and construction of the football facility of which they dreamed was taking its time.

It was only their second season as a varsity team, so everything about the program was marked by fledgling characteristics save its play on the field. But when the stadium was complete, the Patriots sported some of the best high school football facilities money could buy.  

The turf formerly belonged to Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The field became the largest artificial turf field in the state of Alabama, according to Pike Road. And the lights that were erected around the field cost roughly $200,000.

This season, Pike Road will debut another toy in its Aug. 28 home opener versus Calhoun: a light show rivaling the state’s two college powers.

According to Musco Lighting of Oskaloosa, IA, a sports and large-area lightning company responsible for Georgia and Alabama’s famed light show debuts last season, as well as the lights that were recently installed at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Pike Road will become the only high school in the tri-state area (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi) to wield the same LED light show capabilities as Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.

“One of our goals is to give the players the best high school experience possible,” said Patriots head coach Patrick Browning. “And at the end of the day, you look at what Musco (Lightning) has done with partnering with us, I truly believe that if you’re playing here you’re going to experience one of the coolest high school environments ever.”

More:Talking fall sports and COVID-19: Q&A with AHSAA executive director Steve Savarese

The Patriots and Musco have been working with one another since the stadium’s birth, and it was Musco that initially installed Pike Road’s light poles. Those poles were already equipped with LED light-show capabilities, and Pike Road even used the technology in 2019. However, the lights only operated in white light. 

But earlier this summer, the band and the football team decided they wanted to add colored lights to the venue, said Chuck Ledbetter, superintendent of Pike Road City Schools. So, the school system acknowledged their request and more.

Ledbetter said that in 2020, Pike Road will have the ability to use 128 colors, though the stadium will primarily feature the school’s red and blue color scheme. The range of colors will be used for anything from the band’s halftime show to the celebration of a touchdown.

But it will also cost.

“That type of light system, given the fixture quantity, can run anywhere between $30,000 and $40,000,” said Gaines Todd, a sales representative with Musco Lighting.

More:Park Crossing football receives $10k donation from The Medical Place CEO Alfred Seawright

Pike Road believes the addition was worth the cost, and will help to create an atmosphere at Patriot Field that endorses an escape from everyday life and the anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s tough right now,” said Pike Road band director Patrick Darby. “But all of a sudden, Friday night when you have everyone out here and that music’s booming and the lights get going, the fans will get excited, the band starts playing harder and the football team is working harder, it’s just going to bring everybody’s spirit up.”

How does it work?

Pike Road has the ability to control the lights at an on-site console, as well as from the touch of a phone from anywhere in the world, Gaines said. 

But before this was a possibility, Musco had to scout the field, determine pole angles and heights. Once the lighting layout was approved, determining the color layout followed, including accounting for the number of lighting fixtures in the stadium and the desired color palettes the school wants to use. 

From there, the show-runners were able to synchronize light-show patterns with music and coordinate specific lighting styles and displays as a response to whatever action takes place on the field.       

More:The prophecy: Valiant Cross and head coach Willie Spears set to face inaugural season

The Patriots already have all of this planned out an intro show for when they take the field against Calhoun, featuring lights synced to a mix of Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares” and Waka Flocka’s “Grove St. Party.” 

The Pike Road light show is not reserved only for football. The school has also had the technology installed on its baseball and softball fields and expects to have access to the same capabilities by spring 2021.  

“Sports have increasingly become entertainment as well as athletics,” Ledbetter said. “The lights gives an entertainment value to the show.

“To be able to blaze a trail and to show a way, where others will see it, is something we want to try to do in every aspect of what we do.”

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Andre Toran at AToran@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @AndreToran.