Parkway Edging Closer to Completing New Turf Installation

The Parkway high school football fields will have a new look, and feel, this fall.

And there is no doubt that the district’s athletes, coaches and athletic directors are excited about this.

Each of the four high schools (Parkway West, North, Central and South) will showcase brand new turf fields this football season. The approved the work, which comes with a price tag of $2.86 million, last December.

Parkway North and South had new field turf installed in the spring. For West and Central, the work is ongoing and should be completed by the time football season begins on Aug. 26.

“Grass isn’t meant to be played on 365 days out of the year, or even 250 days,” said Parkway West Athletic Director Brian Kessler. “It’s just not made for that. We babied it. But cancellations because of rain don’t have to happen anymore. It’s just a great space for our community.”

The turf replacement at West should be done by Aug. 13. Central will be the last school completed, prompting football coach Mark Goldbenberg to jokingly question who he upset.

“I don’t know what I did, but I obviously got somebody mad at me,” he quipped. “We knew the time table and we never wanted to be the last one, but somebody has to be.

“We are very excited. We’d be even more excited if we were at Parkway South or North where it’s done.”

The work has not impacted the summer conditioning programs at either Central or West, with Kessler and Goldenberg saying that those football camps had never been held at their respective stadiums. Central A.D. Mike Roth did say that some summer physical education classes were affected but, when the work is completed, it will be a “win-win” for everyone.

The marching band can practice on the durable field turf and the surface can be used more often for physical education classes. Kessler called West’s stadium the “biggest P.E. classroom” at the school.

“It’s a great space for our P.E. department, which was severely lacking in space,” Kessler said. “It is exciting to have turf around here. For us, we are a pretty land-locked school. We’ve got 23 athletic programs and a lot of them are outside. This gives us an extra practice field we can use, even in the rain.”

The stadiums will host varsity football, soccer, field hockey and lacrosse contests on the new turf. Kessler said West football coach Jeff Duncan, who could not be reached because he’s vacationing, will use the turf field in future summers. Duncan is entering his third season as head coach at West.

Although Goldenberg said he was able to do everything they would “normally do in the summer,” he did add that “it would have been nice to get on (the field) with a couple of practices.”

He added that the “newness is real exciting” and also a bit exasperating.

“It is frustrating any time you have a project of this size,” Roth said. “Our field looks like it’s going to be the last one completed, but we’re still hopeful it can be ready for the start of the season.

“We’re certainly looking forward to having a nice facility once it’s ready to go.”