The new stadium at Premont High School won’t have just any artificial playing surface. Because of what school superintendent Steve VanMatre called an “unfortunate situation,” the new stadium will have NFL caliber turf exactly like that used by the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Thanks to a $10.6 million bond project to build a new elementary school in Premont, the district was also able to afford the new football stadium to coincide with bringing back its varsity football program. Work on the stadium has been ongoing since May.

All was going as planned. However, in July a Premont family was in the emergency room at a local hospital when they overheard a construction worker from the stadium project allegedly “bad mouthing” the Premont community, VanMatre said.

Hellas Construction is the company building the stadium in Premont.

“You can imagine this family was there in the emergency room and they get stuck having to hear this guy saying these things about Premont,” he said. “They were, of course, upset and they called me. I called Hellas Construction and told them what happened and that it wasn’t right.”

To smooth things over, Hellas Construction upgraded Premont’s turf selection, VanMatre said. See, when Pemont ISD ordered the stadium, the most affordable level of turf was selected. VanMatre said it matched that of the turf in most high school stadiums like in Sinton and Freer. Hellas Construction’s upgrade, which totaled about $100,000, means the new Premont Stadium has its most expensive line of turf which matches the turf used in NFL stadiums.

VanMatre broke the news of the turf upgrade on his Facebook page recently.

“Hellas Construction, in an effort to make amends, had graciously agreed to upgrade the surface design to NFL quality at no additional cost to the district,” he posted.

The new surface was installed Friday morning. Most of the stadium is complete. Already up is the home side of the stadium and a new scoreboard. The visitors’ side is going up next week, and the all-weather track should be completed midway through the football season.

Premont is scheduled to break in the new stadium on Aug. 31 against Monte Alto. It will be the program’s first varsity football game since Nov. 2011.

 

Source: alicetx.com

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