Dunwoody High School’s Seacrest Stadium set to open in August 2027

Seacrest Stadium at Dunwoody High School will officially be ready for games next August.

Steven Fortenberry, president of the Dunwoody High School Community Association, said the organization has reached its fundraising goal of $1.5 million to supplement a sizable unspecified donation from media personality and alum Ryan Seacrest and his family.

The money will enable the school to add 2,000 seats, new bathrooms, a concession stand and press box.

“We’ve been wanting to do this for 20 years,” said Fortenberry, a 1984 graduate of the school and a finance teacher there for 27 years until he retired last year. “This will bring the community together. Kids can walk to games.”

He said about 800 households donated money, several in excess of $15,000.

“It was very much a grassroots effort,” Fortenberry said. “We think it will also be a great recruiting tool for the high school.”

At 1,000 seats, the stadium isn’t currently big enough for the Dunwoody Wildcats to host games. It shares North DeKalb Stadium, which has a capacity of 6,500, with Chamblee High School, about four miles south of Dunwoody High School.

The renovations will let the Wildcats to play at home, making them the first DeKalb County high school to have its own on-campus home field.

Seacrest, host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “American Idol” and the ABC New Year’s special as well as a syndicated radio show, graduated from Dunwoody High School in 1993.

“Through all of life’s adventures, Dunwoody continues to be home for me and my family,” Seacrest said in a statement provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year. “It’s a place with so many special memories and a rich community that has given us so much. It is a true honor to know generations of Wildcats will get to enjoy this space and experience some of the magic that makes our city one that keeps us coming back.”

When the organization first announced Seacrest’s donation last November, it was hoping to have the stadium ready by the start of the 2026-27 football season. But Fortenberry said fundraising, permitting and construction plans all took longer than expected.

Nonetheless, he expects renovations to begin next month and construction to finish by next summer in time for the first game in August.

No taxpayer dollars will be spent on the renovations, he noted.

Seacrest played for the Wildcats when he was in high school, but told ESPN sportscaster Dan Patrick in 2016 that he wasn’t exactly a star athlete.

“I didn’t have a lot of technique or finesse or skill,” Seacrest said. “People are pretty surprised when they hear I owned a pair of cleats.”

His team, Seacrest noted, did win a regional championship. (Dunwoody won a state championship a year after he graduated.)

While in high school, Seacrest did morning announcements and landed an on-air job at top 40 station Star 94.

The stadium isn’t the first time Seacrest has been in the news for giving back, especially in his home state. In 2010, he opened a radio station inside Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston to entertain sick children.