OT: Smurf Turf Could Cost A Lion Exec His House

Submitted by CRex on

In brief, five families in Oxford Michigan offered up their homes as collateral to help the local high school pay for smurf turf.  The school is coming up 300k short in terms of its ability to pay off the 400k loan, so now these individuals may lose their homes.  This includes Bill Keenist, senior VP for the Lions.

MIPrepZone Article On It

Hopefully no one gets evicted over smurf turf (I can't imagine Astroturf would want to get that kind of PR) and the school can pay it off.  Also, who puts their home on the block for smurf turf?  This isn't Texas people...

The Yahoo Article here lists Keenist as a donor, however the PrepZone Article is more informative otherwise.

French West Indian

August 22nd, 2012 at 11:48 AM ^

...and these people put up their houses as collateral?  WTF?!

Is there a contest for stupidest town in America?  Because I think we may have a winner here.  Actually, on second thought that is not right because the town turned down the idea of financing the football field so I guess that was pretty savvy of them.  Still, this is a pretty f'd up situation.

mgowill

August 22nd, 2012 at 11:54 AM ^

Me: "Honey, can you come in here?"

Wife: "Be right there."

Me: "Hey, this guy on the phone is from the school."

Wife: "What does he want?"

Me: "He wants us to contribute to bright blue turf for the football field."

Wife: "Are they selling raffle tickets or having a bake sale?"

Me: "No, he just wants to use our house as collateral on their four hundred thousand dollar loan."

Wife: "..."

PeterKlima

August 22nd, 2012 at 11:57 AM ^

They will not lose their homes because of the football field.  They will lose it because they are idiots.

You put a mortgage on your home without any clear way to pay it off?  And, a mortgage for something that is completely unecessary.  I love sports and football, but you do not need to risk anything to install a new colored-turf for a kids' FB team.  It makes no sense.

 

The only thing I can think of is that these people thought they would get a bailout from somebody once the press picked up the story.

 

I don't think they deserve a bailout.  Morans should live with their mistake and teach their kids accountability.

O Fo Sho

August 22nd, 2012 at 12:04 PM ^

throw a quick golf scrammble this Saturday and rake in $2,200 for the cause!  Wow, what morons!  You can't blame them for wanting to help their school out, but you can blame them for being ignorant.  These are decisions that smart people wouldn't have made.....

snarling wolverine

August 22nd, 2012 at 12:27 PM ^

Why were they so desperate to get this field installed?  What were they playing on before, asphalt?

On another absurd note, apparently Boise State has copyrighted the phrase "blue turf."  Really, Boise?

 

wile_e8

August 22nd, 2012 at 12:27 PM ^

FWIW A few years ago my uncle told me about how they had turf installed at a school where he was superintendent. Apparently it was cheaper in the long run - the high upfront costs were more than offset by the lower costs for upkeep (watering, mowing, paying someone to do all of that, etc), and it held up to repeated use by multiple sports much better. So it could be a money saving plan once you figure out how to pay those upfront costs.

PeterKlima

August 22nd, 2012 at 12:14 PM ^

... spread the amount in small chunks over different homes.  In fact, could "Astroturf" foreclose when the primary mortgage is held by a bank?  Wouldn't the sale proceeds go to the bank first?  I am not so sure they are at a realistic point of losing their homes.  Bummer.

davking1980

August 22nd, 2012 at 12:29 PM ^

this was actually done outside of the actual school district. once the voters turned down the bond issue, the school dropped it and it was actually the sports booster club that undertook and did the financing for this.

obviously the school had to give its permission but the truly idiotic was done by non-school district people.

i would bet you'll see a large donation made by the detroit lions charitable foundation then an 11th hour refinance of the remaining portion of the unpaid amount, too much bad pr all around for the bank to just take peoples houses for something that "benefitted the kids", regardless of how monumentally stupid these peoples initial decision was.

ShockFX

August 22nd, 2012 at 2:05 PM ^

A 400k loan with a 1 year duration? What was the revenue stream to pay this back? Bake sales? How do you end up 75% short?

Figures a Lions' exec would be involved.

MSHOT92

August 22nd, 2012 at 7:29 PM ^

You have a VP with a professional sports team that is afraid of losing his home over a piddly $400K? Really? so, what's the league minimum salary in the NFL? JUST....curious. =)