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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City high school will get a new football field thanks to the NFL.

The Northeast Vikings won the state championship as World War II came to an end.

“We never watched a game (on the field) it wasn’t suitable to play on even back then,” 1946 graduate Dolores Faherty said.

Seventy years later, not much has changed. There’s still no lights or stands, or even lines, just goalposts and a field full of holes.

“I was out for a couple games in the past couple seasons because I rolled my ankles and my ankles were messed up,” Northeast Senior Wide Receiver DMeeko Blackmon said.

“You are supposed to be safe on a field and when you have humps on the field and in the grass and the concrete is right there, it’s not good for football,” Kansas City Chiefs Linebacker Derrick Johnson said.

So Johnson, Wide Receiver Jason Avant and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs are teaming up to give the team a better place to play.

A $200,000 dollar grant from the NFL, matched by Kansas City Schools will be used to install artificial turf and a track. Twenty-five thousand dollars from ESPN will be part of a multi-million dollar plan to add lights, bleachers and a scoreboard.

“It’s critical families who live in these types of communities need to have choices for things to do, choices for their kids to go.” LISC Executive Director Steven Samuels said.

While they wait for the new field, scheduled to be ready for next season, the team will benefit from the pro advice.

“This is a dream come true for alumni and for our kids,” graduate Sue Ann Erb said.

“Hopefully it can restore some confidence some hope, and just some encouragement that people outside of the community are really thinking about them,” Avant said.

The NFL and the Chiefs have spent $2.4 million dollars to improve 13 fields the past 13 years at Kansas City schools.