DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- Dallas ISD has finished construction on a replacement football field at Thomas Jefferson High School. The school was one of three damaged in the tornado in October 2019.
Dallas ISD opened a replacement campus earlier this year and cut the ribbon on the field Tuesday morning.
"This is a perfect example of sports being a means not just an end," says Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde. "This isn't just about football. This is so much greater than that. This is about partners coming together big and small."
The Dallas Cowboys and Gene and Jerry Jones Family Foundation donated $1 million for the field and equipment.
"The Cowboys helped us rebuild while they also destroyed the Giants," Elizalde says.
She says the field will provide more than just a place to play football. She says the field will provide a gathering place for the neighborhood for flag football games, soccer games and other events where kids can get to know each other and learn to work as a team.
Tuesday morning, current and former Dallas Cowboys played flag football with students.
"That's what a school is. A school is a family, a team coming together as one," says former Cowboy Charles Haley, who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2015.
Haley lives nearby and says access to equipment like this can help kids achieve more regardless of where their careers land.
"Kids are really, really going to enjoy this, take the opportunity to be the best they can not only in the classroom but out here in sports," he says.
"You see the girls, you see the boys, and you see the opportunity for them to enjoy fitness, enjoy the game and enjoy each other," says Dallas Cowboys Executive Vice President Charlotte Jones. "This is about building unity, it's about building teams, and it's about building an experience they'll never forget."
The bond approved by voters in 2020 included $200 million to replace Thomas Jefferson High School, Walnut Hill Elementary and Cary Middle School.
TJ High School reopened in January of this year. Walnut Hill Elementary reopened as Walnut Hill International Leadership Academy next door, and Career Institute North has opened about a block away.
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