At a news conference held on Monday by the Texas A&M Board of Regents, board member Jim Schwertner said he would like to see the name Kyle Field (current name of the Texas A&M football stadium) revised in order to pay homage to Johnny Manziel.
(UPDATE: Browns claim Manziel won’t start right away)
“My vision is that someday I hope the Aggie nation will come together and decide that we can revise the name of Kyle Field to ‘Kyle Field — The House That Johnny Built'”
Kyle Field is currently under a $450 million renovation plan which will bring its capacity from its current 82,589 configuration to 102,500 for the 2015 season.
You see this is why when ESPN gives us wall to wall coverage of Johnny Manziel, and Tim Tebow and Lebron James for that matter. It’s actually completely warranted and justified by sports fans.
I am not against Texas A&M honoring Johnny Manziel. After all, his success with the football program played a huge roll in loosening the stranglehold the Texas Longhorns had on the Lone Star State while leading the Aggies to national prominence. However, putting his name in the title of the stadium seems a bit much at this point.
Edwin Jackson Kyle, for whom the stadium is named after, used his own money and actually built the first Texas A&M football stadium. Being no more than a couple months removed from the team and implying the stadium is Johnny’ Manziel’s house is absurd.
While it’s true that Manziel’s popularity led to a very large amount of money being raised in a very short period of time; putting his name on the stadium greatly minimizes the success the team had the past two years. The same team that had two of Manziel’s teammates go before him in the draft. Also, Johnny Manziel only played two seasons at College Station, and although he won the Heisman, he never won the national or even the SEC title.
It’s true that Johnny Manziel made a ton of money for the school and the conference, and he didn’t see a dime of it. No royalties at all. However, that’s not an A&M issue, that’s a NCAA issue. Kyle Field can’t rectify the injustice of Johnny Manziel getting short-changed; only Mark Emmert can.
Shouldn’t stadium naming rights honors go to those who won team, in addition to individual trophies? Who played all four, or at least three years?
I can see a statue of Johnny Manziel, along with a wing or gate of the stadium named after him, but the name of one player representing the history of a program that has lead up to this point in time? No way!
And apparently, Johnny hasn’t won over former Secretary of State and Browns fan Condoleezza Rice yet.
By the way, check out Manziel’s first ever tweet. It has Texas Longhorns connections. (makes sense given his obsession with UT)
Also contributing to this story is:
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks is a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, who’s been featured both in Forbes and on the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)