What was previously the site of the Roosevelt Junior High School is now the site of a practice field used for many different purposes.
“The benefit of having a turf (field), is that even wet you can get on and our teams can practice, our band can practice, our physical education classes can use it. So it’ll get an extraordinary amount of use,” athletic director Phil Riccio said.
During early April, the school began construction on Roosevelt Field to put in new turf. They first began with removing the old turf to replace it with fresh new turf.
“April is when they started with ripping out the old surface and starting to put the new surface in and grading the surface,” Riccio said.
“They have to take out the old turf; they have to haul that away. Then they have to rip out the e-layer and the e-layer is approximately four inches – it works to increase the blow when you hit it, then they have to take that out, and they send out the recycling as well. Then they’ll come in and grade everything with shale and then start applying the new turf,” Riccio said.
The field is constantly used, whether it is for athletics, band or physical education. The field is always occupied during the warmer months.
“When we were in junior high, we would be there for several weeks during the summer for band camp. We would practice tons there during the school year too,” senior Brian Beere said.
“I taught physical education at the junior high years ago, and we used it a ton whenever the weather was nice in the fall and in the spring. My niece and my daughter played a bunch of soccer. and they use that field a lot. My son played football on it last year. So a lot of junior high sports will use it. I know our softball and baseball teams will use it whenever they can’t get on the regular fields,” assistant principal Vincent Nedimyer said.
The field should open back up for the schools by the end of May.
