Schools

Paramus Catholic Breaks Ground for New Turf Field [VIDEO/PHOTOS]

Alumni, students, board members and members of the Paramus community gathered Wednesday for the celebration.

Wednesday was a day of great pride for the Paramus Catholic High School Paladin community as the school made history breaking ground to make way for a brand new artificial turf field.

“Has there ever been a better time to be a Paladin,” said James Vail, president of PCHS to an audience made up of alumni, students, faculty and others from the community who joined in the celebration.

The school is replacing its grass field with AstroTurf which is known to be safer and more durable than natural grass.

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"Paramus Catholic doesn't follow others, Paramus Catholic sets the tone and that's what we did in the selection of our contractor for our AstroTurf field," said Vail.

"One of the things that is going into the new field for all the Paladins to play on is the Nylon RootZone system which is completely different than anything out on the marketplace," explained Matt Olds of AstroTurf. "It has the best foot traction and other safety features second only to natural grass."

Find out what's happening in Paramuswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Vail acknowledged all those instrumental in making the project happen and the contributions that have come in from the school community towards this project. To date $125,000 has been raised for the new field, according to Vail.

Work will begin as early as this weekend and continue over the coming months to get it all complete by July in time for fall sports.

Vail said the new field will serve many purposes but the school also "hopes and expects our football team will be defending their state championship on this new field."

"They won it in the mud and now we will try to win it on the turf," said Vail of the championship team which just won the state title this past December for the first time since 1997.

To mark the ground breaking members of both championship teams - 1997 and 2012 - put on hardhats and grabbed shovels to mark the historic moment. 


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