By David Berry
Updated 10:41 am, Monday, August 5, 2013
To find out how Jill Klinkhammer wound up with what she considers the best seats in Indian Stadium, affectionately known to residents of Port Neches-Groves as The Reservation, you have to go back to 1951.
That’s when Indian Stadium was first built and Klinkhammer’s grandparents on her motherBarbara Humphrey’s side, Ernest and Thelma Webb, bought a pair of season tickets. Seats Nos. 3 and 4.
Humphrey inherited the seats after both of her parents passed away. In 2005, as Humphrey was redoing her will, she asked Klinkhammer if she had any requests.
“Mom, there’s really only one thing I want when you die,” Klinkhammer said to her mom, who assumed it was the house or car.
“I want Nana and Pop’s season tickets.”
Humphrey started laughing. Klinkhammer was serious.
The popularity of season tickets in Southeast Texas is a sign of the devotion high school alumni have to their school and a testament to the craziness of high school football in the region in general.
In few regions are high school football season ticket sales the phenomenon they are here.
“Those tickets mean more to me than anything else,” Klinkhammer said. “I’ve lived here my whole life. My kids will go to school here. That’s just part of being here in this area. You live, breathe, eat, sleep football. It’s Port Neches-Groves. That’s what it is.”
Section D, row 15, seats 15 and 16. Right on the 50-yard line.
Not too low, so her vision of the game isn’t distracted by the sidelines. Not too high up either, which can become a laborious climb the older you get.
“The primo tickets,” Klinkhammer said.
Klinkhammer isn’t the only want whose football plans are set.
Around Southeast Texas, some schools have already started selling tickets and others soon will. Holding a stack of tickets in your hand is a sure sign that football season is around the corner.
“You get the football fever,” said Anthony Concienne, an 86-year-old Nederland graduate who has had Bulldog season tickets for more than 50 years. “I’ve been a fan here all my life. I played here in my high school days. When it comes to season tickets, it gets me kind of excited.”
All season ticket holders are required to purchase them on a yearly basis, even if they have had the season tickets for years, which eliminates the need for waiting lists at most schools.
A majority start by selling tickets to their previous holders. They then go on sale to the general public.
PN-G and Nederland aren’t the only schools with season ticket fever. District 20-4A competitor Vidor was the first to start selling season tickets for the 2013 season.
Athletic secretary Lori Mathews initially planned to start season ticket sales at 8 a.m. on July 1, but a line began forming at the high school before 6 a.m. and became so long that she started selling half an hour early.
“It’s been like this for the last three years,” said Mathews, who is in charge of the school’s season ticket sales. Vidor has made the playoffs two straight seasons.
Mathews said that of more than 2,300 season tickets, only 25 remained as of Thursday. Season tickets are $25 each.
Aug. 9 in the last day to buy Vidor season tickets. Any that are left will go into the general admission pool.
Orangefield and Bridge City already have begun selling tickets, and West Orange-Stark will start season ticket sales Tuesday.
When PN-G announces the day season tickets will go on sale, Klinkhammer checks her work schedule. On July 22 this year, she was at her job as a surgical tech in the operating room atChristus St. Mary’s Hospital.
But luck was on her side in the person of one of her patients, who was also a PN-G season ticket holder.
The patient offered to have her husband pick up Klinkhammer’s tickets. While Klinkhammer is relieved, she may try an alternative, easier way to get the tickets in the future – the mail.
“I’m going to start doing that next year,” she said.
The Beaumont ISD schools had season ticket packages available when the Dr. Carrol Thomas Educational Support Center opened in 2010. Fans were able to buy the season tickets to each home game for their respective schools or they could by a package of all 10 regular-season games.
The BISD website has not updated the season ticket release from 2010, and none of the three schools had any reference to 2013 season tickets.
Besides guaranteed good seats for home games, season ticket holders have first crack at the road games they want to go to.
According to Concienne, they also get first shot at tickets for playoff games, which sell out quicker than regular-season games.
When it comes to regular-season games though, nothing is more important to anyone in Nederland, Port Neches or Groves than “Mid-County Madness.”
“Come hell or high water I’m there,” Klinkhammer said of the PN-G and Nederland game
Per each school’s rules, nobody from one school is permitted to ask for tickets on or sit on the other school’s home side. Not that they would want to.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens,” Klinkhammer said about asking a Nederland fan for tickets or a seat. “That’s like asking someone from UT to sit on the (Texas) A&M side. It’s not going to happen.”
No matter what, to local schools’ diehard fans, season tickets mean the start of football.
“It’s just like a yearly routine,” Concienne said about getting season tickets. “Like waking up every morning.”
DBerry@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dBerrySports
Source: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/hs/article/In-Southeast-Texas-season-tickets-are-a-must-have-4707145.php
