FRUITPORT – After starting the season with two pretty dramatic games on the road, the Fruitport football team is getting pretty homesick.
But as the Trojans and most fans found out a few days ago, the coaches and players will have to settle for home away from home this week.
Fruitport, 1-1, was scheduled to play its 2002 home opener on Friday night against Allendale. It was a supposed to be an exciting night for the community, with the team coming after competing at Kenowa Hills and Grand Rapids Christian, and the unveiling of the school’s new artificial turf playing surface.
Unfortunately the installation of the turf has taken longer than expected, so the game has been shifted to the very nice football stadium at Hope College in Holland at 7 p.m. on Friday.
[1]Tickets will be $5 as usual, all passes will be honored, and fans 60 and older will be admitted for free. All fans should enter at the main entrance of the stadium, and tickets will be for sale on site. There will be no concession stands, so food and beverages will be allowed.
Playing at Hope is a nice consolation for the Trojans, who had their summer camp at the college and grew very fond of the facilities, according to head coach Nate Smith.
“We have a great relationship with Hope,” Smith said. “The last two summers we had our camp there, so the guys are excited.
“There is some disappointment. We wanted to open the field and play in front of the community, but for the kids, playing on a college campus kind of eases that.”
Coach Smith and Fruitport Athletic Director Jonny Morehouse realized a few weeks ago that it might be tough to have Pierce Field ready for the scheduled game and started making calls to search for possible alternate sites.
[2]“We kind of saw it coming,” Smith said. “You’ve got to prepare for things like this. It’s just an understanding of the construction process and how things can be pushed back.”
Smith noted that the company installing the new turf had been busy doing the same thing at several other schools before it could get to Fruitport. Some issues with local government also pushed the project back, he said.
“I know (the project materials) are all there and ready to go,” Smith said. “They are just finishing up a similar project at East Lansing, they also did West Ottawa, and I think there was one in between.
“I know there was a big hiccup with the (Muskegon County) Drain Commissioner that pushed our project back about 2-3 weeks. From what I’m told they were going to be working on it over the weekend.”
Smith said he’s pretty confident that the field will be ready for the next scheduled home game on Sept. 23 against Coopersville. There will be two more regular season home games after that – Oct. 7 against Grand Rapids West Catholic and Oct. 21 against Holland Christian.
[3]“It should be set by then,” Smith said. “There’s a little bit of a window there, so you never know for sure. Weather could push some things back.”
The new artificial turf will be very attractive and useful when it’s ready. With excellent drainage, the field will remain in good condition throughout every season, which means the Trojans won’t run the risk chewing up the field in wet weather and creating muddy conditions.
“At the end of each season, the field did have many spots that the wear and tear of a normal football season puts on a field,” Morehouse said. “Our grounds team did an excellent job providing the best playing surface possible, but the new turf will be far superior to a grass field when it comes to wear and tear.
“The drainage allows for the field to not be as slick, with no muddy spots, and is a much more consistent playing surface. With the old field being grass, we could never practice on it. With the new field being turf, both football and the band can practice on this surface. It opens up our practice fields a little bit to allow others access to the fields.”
The new surface should also help reduce player injuries.
“The new field will have shock pads laid down first, before the turf,” Morehouse said. “This will help make the field safer to play on.”
“Overall it’s more safe on the joints due to the consistency,” Coach Smith added. “It’s far better than my playing days back at Houseman Field (in Grand Rapids) with that hard old astroturf. That stuff was really hard on your body.”
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