Will Kyle Field be ‘The House that Johnny Built?’,
Regent proposes revising stadium name to Kyle Field – The House that Johnny built.
Jim Schwertner, a member of Texas A&M’s Board of Regents, said Monday that he’d like to revise the name of Kyle Field.
His preference: “Kyle Field — The House that Johnny Built.”
Johnny, in this case, is former quarterback Johnny Manziel, who won the 2012 Heisman Trophy as the Aggies were raising money for an overhaul of the stadium. He was the 22nd pick of the NFL draft last week, selected by the Cleveland Browns.
Schwertner, who also would like to increase the stadium capacity to 112,000, made his comments as A&M officials were providing an update on Kyle Field’s massive renovation project. He’s the chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Physical Plant.
“The last person that we all need to thank, and I’m very serious about this, is Johnny Manziel,” Schwertner said. “The stars came together, and we talked about this project for a long, long time. None of us were sure how quick we could pay for this project.
“Because of a young man by the name of Johnny Manziel, we were able to raise all of the money in two months. 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.’ ”
He said that ultimately, the school’s current and former students would have a say in tweaking Kyle Field’s name. Schwertner pointed out that while A&M has produced two Heisman winners, Manziel was the only freshman winner for the Aggies.
Manziel already has filed to get the trademark for “The House that Johnny Built.” So he’d be in line to receive money on merchandise whether the Aggies officially tweak the stadium’s name or not.
In other stadium-related news:
The new scoreboard, which would be the largest nationally for college football venues, started going up Sunday as work- ers continued to pull long hours finishing the first phase of refurbishments before the Sept. 6 home opener. The stadium will not be finished until 2015.
By 2015, the stadium will have 100,000 concurrent wireless connections available to fans attending the games.
The new grass surface will be installed in early August.
Workers had a “topping out” celebration Monday after they finished the tallest point of the stadium.
The east facade of the stadium should be finished by mid-August.