It takes more than practice to build a successful high school football team these days.

Everybody practices.

So, the difference between success and failure can often be time spent watching film, how many summer workouts the players attended, number of coaches’ stipends a booster club can pay for, and facilities.

The Chilton County football program announced its intention to keep up with the times when it unveiled plans to build a 14,500-foot “athletic training facility” in the south end zone of Tiger Stadium.

Sure, this facility will also benefit sports other than football. The school’s baseball and softball teams will have an indoor practice area, the wrestling team will have its own practice area after three years spent in the band room, and the current fieldhouse could provide a home for sports, such as track and field and soccer, that don’t have one.

But high school athletics in our state are dominated by Friday nights in the fall, so this column will focus on what this planned facility will mean for CCHS football.

The building will include a weight room three times larger than the current one, enough locker space to accommodate all current Tigers and even to handle future program growth, a multi-purpose room, a meeting/banquet room, a film room, coaches’ offices and a kitchen, among other space. Basically, the fieldhouse will provide everything the players and coaches need to compete at the highest level of Class 5A football.

The structure will do something else, also. It will make it obvious to the Tigers’ opponents that the team they are lining up across from on the field is a squad to be reckoned with.

That’s not a stretch. Don’t underestimate the impact a venue can have on high school age athletes.

When opponents walk into beautiful Tiger Stadium and see the shrubs that spell out “CCHS,” the tunnel leading onto the field and, as early as this season, a state-of-the-art training facility, they’ll consider Chilton County football a program to emulate.