Legacy Bricks, bricks bought and engraved with messages for the upcoming stadium renovation project, are on sale until March 1.
The bricks will be engraved and installed before the first home football game of the 2027-2028 school year Dr. Kim Ptak, Director of Operations, said. There is a limit of 17,000 bricks, and the brick options offered are either a $250 donation for a four inch by eight inch brick with three lines of text, or a $500 donation for a eight inch by eight inch brick with six lines of text, each line consisting of a maximum of 15 characters, Lauren Bonner, Assistant Superintendent of Operations and Student Experiences said. The bricks will be laid out in a way that mixes the bricks that help fund the construction with nonengraved bricks so the path layout flows in a smooth order, Bonner said.
“The more that we can fundraise, the more ability we have to support this project,” Bonner said. “We’ll be purposeful and mindful about the way in which we lay out the bricks that have the engraving on them so that it makes sense.”
Having these bricks be a part of the school environment is mainly to engage the community and to increase fundraising efforts for school enhancements, such as the stadium renovation, Bonner said.
“We started to speak with our booster parents, students, staff, and coaches to start to learn about what their needs and hopes were for this new space, what their hopes and wishes were for the new stadium,” Bonner said. “We also wanted to purposely engage our community on a wider scale.”
One of the first people that reached out to the district about the Legacy Brick project was Val Carroll, daughter of Dick Walker, South’s first football coach from 1962 to 1966, Ptak said. Carroll wanted to buy a brick for Walker, who is now 92 years old, to highlight his additions to our football team, such as creating the uniforms and having input on the teams logo, Ptak said.
“This wonderful woman saw it early on and was so excited,” Ptak said. “This was great, it tells us we are on track with something like this to provide that engagement for the community and a way for them to recognize people who have had an impact on South.”
At the John Davis Titan Stadium, there are banners with two QR codes to scan; one shows early rendering videos of what the finished stadium will look like, while the other is a link to the website with instructions on how to purchase a brick, Bonner said. There are also posters with the QR codes at both the outdoor and indoor concession areas, Bonner added.
South modeled the Legacy Walk project after many schools in the country, Principal Dr. Barbara Georges said. Georges has a brick engraved at the university she attended, and being able to visit the brick she purchased 30 years ago and know she will forever be a part of her alma mater is a special feeling, she said.
“There’s something special about memorializing that you were here and you were part of this at this moment,” Georges said. “To know that you will forevermore be a Titan and to know that brick will stand for generations, it’s a really special and unique experience to come back to. It contributes to a visual memorial about how important this place is to a lot of families in Glenview and it’s an ability for you to say, ‘I was here, I was important, and I was a part of this.’”
