Huntingdon's turf: 6 main takeaways
Huntingdon’s artificial turf and resurfaced track were announced officially last week, and the work is set to begin in June just after the school year ends.
There are also plans to possibly renovate the press box on the home side of Paul Ward Stadium.
Huntingdon is the second school in rural West Tennessee to put artificial turf down on its football field. Dyersburg was the first in 2014. Westview plays its home games on turf, but they play their games at UT Martin’s Hardy Graham Stadium.
For other schools that could be considering similar renovations in their stadium, here are six things this news means:
• Field maintenance severely cut down: Right now the Huntingdon football coaching staff is in charge of making sure the field is ready to go for the home opener each year. That means hours each week are spent on the mower making sure the grass doesn’t get too high, then going back over the field sweeping the clippings with the mower. Artificial turf obviously would cut down on this. According to Huntingdon High School principal Dr. Jonathan Kee, the only maintenance needed on an artificial field is to be drug over three or four times a year to make sure the rubber pellets are evenly spread throughout the surface, and going over the surface once or twice a year with a magnetic vehicle to pick up any pieces that could come off equipment that could potentially be dangerous to play on.
• Much football, little damage: Football fields generally look close to ragged toward the end of the season, particularly in small towns like Huntingdon, where not only the varsity team plays its home games, but junior varsity, freshmen (for schools that have a freshman team), middle school and youth leagues. If Huntingdon decides to put all those teams on this one field, it won’t get torn up each week. Other schools have had problems hosting games after hard-fought games on wet fields left them scarred.
• Avoiding the Camden situation: As soon as this news broke, it was the assumption of most fans this decision was a reaction to when Huntingdon had to cancel its home game in Week 2 last year against Camden, when weather that moved through the area left the field too soupy to play on that Saturday night. Kee claims this wasn’t a reaction to that, but plans were in place to work on the drainage issues before the idea of artificial turf came up.
• More opportunities for the facility: Here’s a trivia question. How many times does Paul Ward Stadium get used from January through the end of July? The answer is none. There’s this big piece of land with bleachers to seat a couple thousand people right behind Huntingdon High School that literally gets used probably 10 nights a year for high school and middle school home football games. Kee likes the thought of events such as Relay For Life and other community happenings going on in the stadium. It will be a multi-use facility for more than just the school and its football program.
• Soccer anyone? Huntingdon doesn’t have a varsity soccer program now. But if it does start one, the field is in place. There are plans to have soccer field markings on the football field. Dyersburg’s field is drawn the same way. The more immediate use is for the youth soccer program in Huntingdon, which already does exist, to play some, if not all, games on the field.
• How about track? One drawback to the track plan is it will only have four lanes. An eight-lane track is required to host TSSAA district, region or sectional meets. University School of Jackson, Dyersburg and Union City are the only three schools in rural West Tennessee that have that capability. Huntingdon couldn’t host an official postseason meet on this track, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t host an invitational meet, or a handful of them throughout the season, for anyone close by who wanted to come compete in one.
Putting down the turf will obviously help football at Huntingdon High School, but this entire project has the potential to help a lot more than that in the town.
Brandon Shields is the high school sports columnist for The Jackson Sun. Contact him at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at (731) 425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at jacksonsunsports.