RIPON, Wis. - When the Ripon College football team takes the field to kickoff their 2008 home season on September 13th against Lake Forest, there will be one noticeable difference. Most of the players are returning from last season, but last season’s playing surface is not. For the first time since Ingalls Field was built in 1888, the Red Hawks will be running and tackling on artificial turf.

The new surface, known as "Field Turf" has been a dream of Ripon head coach Ron Ernst’s for nearly a decade because of the inferior condition of the field in the past and the risk of injury that it could cause to the players. That dream will now become a reality that many thought wouldn’t come until many years in the future, if at all.

"I’ve been working all different kinds of angles and processes to get this done for the last ten years. The poor quality of the field hit its peak in 2002, which is when we began to try even harder to get it done," Ernst said.

The field’s renovation was voted on twice in the last couple years by the city of Ripon, but was defeated each time, the first of which ended in a tie vote. That led to the College and some local businesses and community members to take matters into their own hands to fund the $625,000 project. The College put up about a third of the money for the new turf, while the high school, who shares the field with the Red Hawks, put up about 20 percent. The rest of the money was made up by community and business donations.

"After the Field Turf vote was defeated twice, it was clear that no one would get it done unless the Ingalls Field committee rekindled the interest in it," committee member Bob Lukoski said. "It is a worthwhile project because it’s a joint venture for both the College and High School and each of them will get plenty of use out of it. The positives far outweighed any negatives."

The process of tearing the old field out began the day after Ripon College’s final home game of 2007. Once the field was out, 90 percent of the base for the new field was put in, which is made of rock and crushed gravel. The remainder of the base was put in during the spring, and the installation of the turf begun on June 2nd. The field is expected to be completed sometime in the middle of summer and will be ready well in advance of the 2008 football season. The new field is guaranteed to last eight years, but is expected to last as long as 15 and maybe even 20.

"We’ll have the best field in the conference after the Field Turf is installed," Ernst said. "The company we’re using to have it installed, along with the quality and kind of surface we’re putting in will be the best around."

With the installation of the Field Turf, Ripon will be the fifth school in the Midwest Conference with this kind of surface on their home field, which means the Red Hawks will likely be playing eight games on artificial turf each season.

"One huge advantage is that it will help our recruiting because it allows us to keep up with other schools. If we did not have Field Turf, we would continue to fall behind and lose some kids to other schools like we have in the past," Ernst said. "It’s huge because it allows us to keep up with everyone else. Right now, this is a surface that most schools already have."

Potential recruits are sure to get excited about playing on an outstanding surface such as Field Turf, but maybe not as excited as the players that are already on the team and have seen the previous field conditions at Ingalls Field. They’ll be able to tell the difference immediately, which will seem like night and day, compared to what they’re used to.

"The players are very excited about our new field because they’ve played on Field Turf at other schools and they know what it’s like,” Ernst said. “Whenever our players would come off the field at other schools that have Field Turf, they would always say, 'Why can’t we have this.'"

Now they can.