Lockport stadium gets big boost thanks to turf

LOCKPORT – There haven’t been that many significant changes in the athletic facilities at Lockport Township during the school’s 100-plus year existence.

But nearly 40 years after a new stadium at East campus replaced the football field and track at the Athletic Field and almost a decade after boys basketball was last played at the Central gym, the Porters are in for a new look that will benefit more than just athletics.

Fans who attend Friday’s Maroon and White football scrimmage at the stadium will get to see the new turf surface and the rebuilt track that have been completed in recent weeks.

But while the new facility’s debut will feature football, the real reason for the change in surfaces involves much more than the most popular sport at the site, according to Porters’ athletic director Brian Goff.

“Actually when we talked about putting in the turf, football was kind of fourth or fifth on my list,” Goff said. “It’s going to help us out in the spring by having teams practicing outside earlier, which opens up our fieldhouse to inside sports, which is nice. And obviously, the band is going to get a lot of use out of the new field.

“We have a great soccer facility on grass, but we could never host a regional due to lights, but now we can host a soccer regional, fall or spring. And that’s just for athletics. We still have use for physical education classes and we’re still working out some of the logistics for use by people in the community. The new field will have all kinds of uses.”

While there’s obviously a high price for the initial installation this type of a surface, that’s balanced out by the regular upkeep that was required after the grass field was damaged following a game on a rainy evening.

“Everywhere that I’ve been, no one could use the field since it was your showcase for varsity football,” Goff said. “If you had a rainy day or weekend, the field could get torn up. A couple of years ago, if we hadn’t canceled a game in a pouring rain, the field would have been trashed for that season and maybe even longer.

“But now we’ve taken that element away and you can open it up for whatever may be. Now we can practice on this field every day instead of doing a walk-through on Thursday and playing on Friday. I don’t know if you’ll actually save or make money by doing this, but you definitely eliminate the risk of ruining a field for multiple games or seasons.”

Lockport joins most of the other schools in the SouthWest Suburban Conference that have similar fields. Only a handful of large programs in the area still play games on grass.

But more importantly, the Porters have the opportunity, especially during the hectic spring season, to free up some of the practice logjam that takes place indoors. And many who had no access to the field can now get the opportunity to finally utilize it.

“Right now in the spring, we have baseball, softball and soccer practicing in the fieldhouse, which is not conducive to them,” Goff said. “But if it’s cool and dry outside, they can be out on the field. Right now, teams are practicing to almost 10 o’clock at night in the fieldhouse. But now if we can get some kids outside, it opens things up and kids can get home earlier.

“The band already has a lined field, but it’s not full-sized so this will give them more space. This was also the cycle where the track was going to be redone, so it worked out perfectly since the track gets torn up in the process of putting in the new field. I know that people in the community are waiting to use the field and I appreciate their patience.

“For the cost, you get twice the amount, or more, use out of the field. When you look at what we were paying while using the field five times, it doesn’t make sense when you can use it almost every day, especially for physical education. The field looks great, it’s going to help us out a ton and it puts us on a level playing field with other schools.”