With a successful football program in place at Gray Collegiate Academy that saw the team win a state title in 2021 and only bow out of the 2022 playoffs after a second round loss to Saluda, the final piece missing for the War Eagles has now come to fruition–the opening of their own on campus football stadium. 

On Aug. 8, the varsity team broke in the new field with a three-way scrimmage matchup against Hillcrest and Westside in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.

“It is great finally having our own home field, it has been a long time coming,” said Gray Collegiate head coach and athletic director Adam Holmes after the scrimmage ended. “Now with the stadium, baseball and softball fields, all of our athletic events will be here on campus.”

The War Eagles stadium is so new it doesn’t yet have a nickname like many area schools’ facilities. According to some team boosters the Chronicle spoke with, however, it got unofficially dubbed “The Thunder Dome” by coaches and players over the summer. That’s a nickname that may need to stick, if only for the metal bleachers and walkways that promise a thunderous sound come game time, from a thousand stomping fans’ feet. 

The artificial turf field seemed to play well during Tuesday evening’s scrimmage, with each of the teams pulling off long pass plays and runs. Holmes admits that these events can yield valuable information for the coaches as they prepare for the regular season.

“I challenged our guys to be better than we were last week against Spartanburg, where we traveled for our first scrimmage of the year,” Holmes said. “Up there, it was rainy and we did some good things, but we also did some bad things, which is typical in a first scrimmage.” 

The teams in the Aug. 8 scrimmage round robin each played a set of downs against the others on offense and defense. Holmes said he liked what he saw from his team.

“We had more energy, and I thought both sides of the ball got better,” Holmes said. “Kaine Williams at linebacker played really well and Blake Croft stood out with our whole defensive line as a unit doing a much better job. On offense, running back B.J. Montgomery ran the ball really well, and the offensive line was better than last week. Both of our quarterbacks, Tyler Waller and Dre Dopson, did some good things. Finally, I am really proud of Zai Offord, who worked extremely hard in the offseason and has become a playmaker for us on both sides of the ball.”

The improvements will be key if the team wants to start off the season in a winning fashion, Holmes admitted.

“We just have to make corrections from this scrimmage and have great practices,” Holmes added. “One thing we will focus on will be our special teams, which is that third phase of the game that we have to sharpen up.”