At the end of July, Monticello High School athletes got a new state-of-the-art synthetic turf field.
The school is the first of the three county high schools—including Western Albemarle and Albemarle—to have the synthetic turf installed, and for Monticello High Athletics Director Fitzgerald Barnes, the new surface is not exactly what he was expecting.
|
Monticello High School is the first school to have installed synthetic turf on its football field. Athletics Director Fitzgerald Barnes is impressed. “The field surface is much better than we anticipated, but the use of the field is also much better than we anticipated,” he says. |
“It’s even better,” he says. “The field surface is much better than we anticipated, but the use of the field is also much better than we anticipated.”
Although synthetic turf provides a more durable surface and a lower annual maintenance cost, there has been argument over the safety of synthetic turf.
In 2007, the County School Board voted in favor of the turf and the Board of Supervisors allocated $225,000 for the cause with only two members of the board voting no—David Slutzky and Ann Mallek.
Despite an anonymous donor who contributed $1.3 million in total for the three schools, synthetic turf isn’t cheap. Monticello was the only one to reach the $600,000-plus price tag in time for a summer installation.
“We are working with the turf company to potentially negotiate the installation price,” says Deb Tyson, Albemarle High athletic director. Albemarle has raised $420,000 so far, about $190,000 shy of the current turf price.
“We had a donor to cover the entire amount, but the economy forced him to retract that donation,” Tyson says. “Our fundraising has sort of resurrected this summer.”
Albemarle is planning for a Rebuild the Field benefit concert on October 25 in the high school stadium with the fundraising target goal set for $50,000. The school will most likely have a silent auction in the second half of the school year.
In Crozet, Western Albemarle High School has raised $520,000, but the fundraising has been slower than what Athletic Director Steve Heon had hoped. “We are about $100,000 short of our goal,” he says, and that would postpone the installation for winter, “but certainly, if not then, then next summer.”
One of the biggest safety concerns of synthetic turf is overheating. Barnes says that the proponents of synthetic turf never denied the fact that it was warmer. “It’s about 5 or 6 degrees hotter,” says Barnes. “But we are not on it. We have an instrument that measures the heat and we are not on it, we don’t let kids be on it once the surface gets to 105 degrees.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
