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Tolleson’s new track, fi eld for the community

Tolleson Union High School’s new track and turf football fi eld took roughly 6 months to complete and fi nished with a price tag of roughly $3.4 million. (Photo by Kaiden Fesler)

HOMECOMING

BY KAYLA SINGLETON

West Valley View Contributing Writer

The Tolleson Union School District is making it a priority to revitalize the 94-year-old Tolleson High School. Along with a new science building, media center, and performing and visual arts center, Tolleson High School’s new track and fi eld was completed earlier this school year.

“The fi rst step for any bond project is to get approval from the district’s voters. In order to do that, TUHSD needed to pass a bond that would provide the funding for these proposed projects. The track and fi eld project at Tolleson Union High School was then approved to move forward by the TUHSD Governing Board,” said Joseph Ortiz, director of public relations and marketing at TUHSD.

The original Synthetic Turf Track & Field contract proposed by Wholesale Floors LLC had a base budget of almost $2.4 million, as presented in the district governing board agenda. At the Feb. 23 board meeting, the contract with Wholesale Floors was reviewed and approved with a 5-0 vote.

In the same board meeting, Westview High School in the Tolleson Union School District was also approved for a similar project contracted by Wholesale Floors.

The details of the budget proposal included drainage systems, athletic equipment such as goal posts and soccer nets, a synthetic running track surface and a synthetic turf fi eld, along with options for LED sports lighting, a new scoreboard, press box and asphaltic concrete paving. The fi nal cost of the project was just over $3.4 million and took roughly six months to complete.

Construction began on April 1, and starting March 31, the student-athletes participating in spring sports were no longer able to practice at their home fi eld. Instead, they utilized the facilities at La Joya Community High School in Avondale.

“The football fi eld was donated after the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks played here (in Arizona), Super Bowl XLIV,” Tolleson athletic director Ray Perkins said. “It was a great fi eld, just the grass was grown in Georgia and so you need to have moisture, you need to have humidity for it to be premium, so it was time for another fi eld.”

However, the fi eld was not completed in enough time for the start of the 2021 football season. The Wolverines had to play their fi rst two games of the season away. The fi eld’s inaugural game was Tolleson’s homecoming on Sept. 24.

Its fi rst game on the new fi eld also marked a change in the course of Tolleson’s season. Previous to their homecoming game, the Wolverines had lost all three of their games. Since then, they are now on a fi ve-game winning streak.

With a school that has as long of a history as Tolleson, opened in 1927, the need for improvements and renovation becomes inevitable.

“The community deserves something new. Our community deserves something like this,” Perkins said.

Arizona Diamondbacks utility player Josh Rojas co-emceed the Goodyear Fall Festival with Steve Summers on Oct. 30. The event included bounce houses, live entertainment, petting zoos, a costume contest and candy. A Millennium High School graduate, Rojas is a regular around town, speaking to Little League teams and doing charity