Milford High School Field Could Get Overhaul To Change The Face Of Sports

Courtesy of Milford Daily News
Writen by Albert Breer
January 23, 2006

It still is very much a ways off.

But if Nick Zacchilli and his athletic department get their way, the face of Milford High sports will change dramatically. That process will start today.

Zacchilli is scheduled to meet with the town's parks department, selectmen and school committee to discuss a proposed facelift to the high school's athletic facilities, to include a resurfacing of the track and tennis courts and the installation of new synthetic turf on the main field with new lights surrounding it. All told, the project's cost is estimated at $1.6 million and would be ready for the 2007-08 school year.

Though Zacchilli is quick to note everything is still in the "exploratory stage," he stresses that this is a facelift that's becoming a pressing issue for the school and its athletes.

 "We started thinking about it probably five or six years ago, and we've talked about it since," said Zacchilli. "It really came about since the new surfaces came around. I'd never been interested in the old AstroTurf®, but the new surfaces really play like grass and you can get a lot out of them."

Just how much Milford could get out of a new surface lies at the center of Zacchilli's reasoning.

Taking a beating from the weather and overuse, the main field -- the only one on campus that can facilitate night games -- has only hosted football for the past couple years, with a couple of isolated exceptions. The reason, though, isn't what you might think.

Soccer and field hockey coaches actually have shied from using it because of its deteriorating conditions and the fact that its dimensions aren't conducive to their sports. In addition, the track surrounding the field and the tennis courts abutting it, both built in the early 1970s, have similarly become dated and worn.

This, to Zacchilli, is a shame. He thinks that all sports should have the opportunity to have night games, because of the special feel and increased opportunities for working parents to attend, and all sports should have the chance to compete in facilities that are up-to-date.

The new field would allow the school to stage event after event, night and day, without any issues. It would also help preserve the other fields, rotating teams off the other fields and onto the turf.

"You do have to do maintenance on it, but the maintenance is minimal compared to grass," Zacchilli said. "If we did the grass field correctly, there's a ton of maintenance involved. The key thing is the cost over the course of the year, when you're talking about the number of contests on a field and per-use.

"The per-use (cost) would be way down."

Simply, it's a long-term solution with a short-term cost.

The more immediate problem is getting what's left of the main field in shape for next fall. The grass is completely gone between the hash marks and is in tough shape outside them.

A resodding is needed, and a decision on the future of the field must come first. If an artificial surface is, indeed, on the way, then Zacchilli says the school could simply resod down the middle of the field at a cost of less than $25,000.

But if the idea of facelifting the complex is shut down, then the whole field will need to be resodded at a cost of $170,000.

Either way, grass can't be planted on the field until after the school's June graduation and that means it will have around two months, in the summer, to settle, which is far from ideal.

What Zacchilli hopes is that he gets a positive response today, and that leads to a town warrant being issued in June, which would clear the way for construction to begin in spring 2007. In that case, he could employ the short-term stopgap with the field this summer.

And, in his mind, secure the longterm future of his athletic department.