Kellam playing its final games at the old stadium

VIRGINIA BEACH

Jim Kinzel nibbled on a sandwich in the Kellam alumni tent last Friday and prepared to do something he's done since the school opened in 1962.

Kinzel, whose kids attended Kellam and whose two daughters teach and coach at the school, works the chain gang at football games.

Kinzel worked the crew for Kellam's final homecoming game last week. Next Friday, he'll work the sidelines for the Knights' last game at their current stadium.

The football team next fall will move to a new stadium at the new Kellam High just down the road.

"I thought it would go on and on and on forever here at this place," Kinzel said. "It's a great place. Wonderful people... always has been. This is a special stadium.

"There will be a lot of tears shed at that last game."

As dozens of alumni poured in for the final homecoming, Roy Ammons was among them. The namesake for the school's athletic complex, Ammons arrived at Kellam a year after it opened - back when it sat far from the southern edge of Virginia Beach's soon-to-be-sprawling community. Now, the school is surrounded by housing developments.

"I guess I never really thought about it ever closing," said Ammons, who taught and coached before becoming the student activities coordinator - a job he held for 35 years. "I've always come back for football games... almost all of them. This was home for so very long."

The new stadium will seat 4,500 and feature synthetic turf, according to Virginia Beach Public Schools' Web site.

"The new Kellam will be Kellam. It's gonna be that way because of the people that make the school what it is," Ammons said. "But to be honest with you, it's never going to be the same."