G-Prep receives green light
The Greater Spokane League has a new football venue.
Gonzaga Prep will play its home games this fall on campus, thanks to new turf and lights on its field, part of a planned $1.5 million renovation of Prep’s athletic facilities.
The Bullpups, defending GSL champions, Tuesday began replacing the grass on their on-campus field with Sprinturf, an artificial playing surface similar to the better-known FieldTurf. Sprinturf (pronounced sprint turf) is used at the University of Montana’s Washington-Grizzly Stadium and is being installed on the University of Idaho’s practice fields.
“You don’t have to do much work on our field,” G-Prep athletic director Paul Manfred said, noting that most of the infrastructure was already in place. “We got a pretty good deal as well. It’s hard to fly anyone in to Missoula who wants to see the product, so they made us a real nice deal. They are going to bring people by and show them the field.”
The renovation will allow G-Prep to play league games on its current campus for the first time. The GSL, at its league meeting Monday, gave its approval to move the four contests (see accompanying list) from Albi Stadium to Prep.
“It’s been kind of a dream of mine since I got here to get it done,” G-Prep football coach Dave Carson said. “To have it actually started out there, I’m still not used to it. In the long run, I don’t know what it’s going to do for our program, but it’s going to be great for the team because we will have a great practice facility that won’t get torn up. We’ll have lights, so we won’t have to hustle through practice because we’re losing the light at the end of November.
“Having the home games here, I don’t know, that will be interesting. We’ve never done that before. I think people are going to get real excited about it.”
G-Prep will bring in temporary seating this fall while the school raises the remaining funds needed to complete the athletic complex renovations. The temporary bleachers, which will be located on the south side of the field, will seat about 2,000. Add in the already existing seating on the north side and grassy areas available for overflow, and the facility should seat about 2,500 and have a capacity of 3,500, according to Manfred.
“There’s a wonderful feel to it,” said G-Prep president Al Falkner of the changes. “We have a lot of enthusiasm among our alums to have games at Gonzaga Prep. We don’t know the future of the Albi turf. We don’t even know the future of Albi Stadium right now. At this point we thought it was prudent to start thinking about having games here.
“It will be the nicest playing surface in Spokane. I say that without any reservations because it is the newest generation of turf. We will be able to have games here every single day – soccer and football and even lacrosse.”
The field preparation is scheduled to be done by Aug. 1, with the new turf installed by the opening of fall football practice Aug. 17, according to Falkner. The lights are scheduled to be installed by Sept. 1.
The new venue allows the GSL to eliminate three early Thursday games on the 2005 schedule, although six remain.
The first games of the GSL Thursday doubleheaders, which start at 4:30 p.m., are usually the least attended games, according to GSL secretary Randy Ryan.
The GSL schedule opens Thursday, Sept. 8, with Mead hosting Central Valley at 4:30 followed by North Central at 7:15 against Clarkston.