Berry College’s planned football stadium will be relocated “out of respect for the nesting site of Georgia’s most famous pair of bald eagles,” school officials said this week.
Work on the Valhalla stadium is set to begin this fall and be completed by the 2015-16 academic year. Valhalla will be home to the Berry Viking football, lacrosse and track and field programs.
Berry’s bald eagles have become a nation-wide phenomenon. Two cameras send streaming video and have garnered more than 17 million views. Almost 60,000 “followers” belong to the Berry College Eagles Facebook page, making frequent comments, posting photos and keeping up with the latest eagle activities. Schoolchildren in classrooms around the world have watched the eagles daily since mid-winter.
“Everywhere we went, people were in awe of the eagles and grateful that we had set up the streaming video,” Steve Briggs, Berry’s president, said in a news release. “The eagles are mesmerizing—better than any reality television show. And the truth is—we are entranced by them as well.”
Berry, which finished its inaugural season with a 1-9 record, opens its sophomore effort on Sept. 6 at Maryville.
