Oakland in line to get Murfreesboro's second artificial turf high school football field

Oakland High School has been pondering the potential of getting artificial turf for its football field for several years.

After watching rival Blackman accomplishing the feat over the past several months, Oakland has decided the time is now.

With the Rutherford County School Board voting to approve Oakland's project, the Patriots will begin fundraising and then planning to resurface the field at Ray Hughes Stadium into artificial turf.

"We talked about it back when Riverdale was was considering it (several years ago when Ron Aydelott was head coach)," said Oakland principal John Marshall. "We had other priorities at the time."

With Blackman proving it can get done efficiently and quickly, the turf priority has taken a front seat at Oakland.

"It's something we've talked about since my interview (for the head football coaching job in 2015)," said Oakland coach Kevin Creasy. "The quickness in which Blackman raised funds and got things done was a wake-up call on how we had been dragging our feet. That was mostly my fault.

"Everyone is excited around here, now that they know."

Oakland is the only school in Rutherford County with an indoor turf practice facility, a place the team would frequently go during bad weather or sloppy practice field conditions.

However, the team's football field, which like Blackman's is used on an almost nightly basis during certain parts of the year, had its issues in 2018. Most was caused by spots on the field that wouldn't grow grass during the summer.

"Our field is severely overused (for a natural grass field)," said Creasy, whose team went 14-1 and captured the Class 6A state championship in 2018. "At one time there were 11 (athletic events) in six days. 

"We have varsity football, junior varsity football, freshmen football, middle school (varsity and freshmen) football, boys and girls soccer, middle school soccer and youth football. It's really hard for grass to have any recovery time.

"There were safety concerns with our field this year."

Oakland will use Athletics Plus as the project manager, that same company used by Blackman. The school learned a lot by what the Blaze did and will utilize the best practices from that process.

"We'll try utilizing the same funding format as Blackman used," Marshall said. "Once we secure funds, we'll go back to the school board and begin the bidding process."

Thanks to donations that will help with the cost of the base work, Blackman's turf project will cost roughly $488,000. The Blaze originally thought the cost would exceed $600,000.

Marshall said he wasn't sure how quickly things would progress, but if things go as well as they did for Blackman, the Patriots should have turf by spring 2020. Blackman began its process in April and is expecting the project to be complete by this spring.

Other high schools in Murfreesboro could soon follow suit. 

Riverdale could revisit the idea at some point after it was the first school to seriously pursue artificial turf a few years back, with funding being the major roadblock. But it's not the top priority for now.

"We're just trying to get (a new football) building complete first before pursuing any other projects," Riverdale football coach Will Kriesky said about a project that's been in the works since he took over the squad in 2016. The facility would replace the antiquated locker rooms, weight room and coaches' offices. 

Siegel has discussed the possibilities of turf since football coach Michael Copley was hired in 2017.

"We looked at it then, but haven't gone out and gotten a big backer (yet)," said Siegel principal Larry Creasy. "We talked about it and will continue to talk about it. We need it. We probably put $30,000-$40,000 a year into field maintenance. We need someone that will be willing to sign on the dotted line.

"We're in the talking stages and looking at possibilities."

Reach Cecil Joyce at cjoyce@dnj.com or 615-278-5168 or on Twitter @Cecil_Joyce.

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