By Katherine Smith
TBO.com
June 22, 2010

Before a spring jamboree football game at Plant’s Dad’s Stadium last year, a rival coach remarked on the mostly dirt field his team would be playing on.
“Did they have a tractor pull here,” the coach joked.

Plant’s field has long been the butt of jokes. A new one will be a source of pride. After years of fundraising, Dad’s Stadium will debut a new artificial turf surface when football season kicks off in August, Plant football coach Robert Weiner said.

“The field will be used by the entire Plant community,” Weiner said.

The process of installing the new surface begins this week, but the project has been years in the making. An artificial field became a necessity of sorts with the wear and tear of multiple sports utilizing the Dad’s Stadium field.

By midseason, the football team grew accustomed to playing mostly on dirt. The dads who volunteered their time to paint the field got creative with the use of green paint.

Plant will be the second school in Hillsborough County with an artificial turf field. Jesuit High School installed the surface in 2007. While the dirt field was a joke to some, Weiner said his team took great pride in playing on the surface - one that helped the Panthers win three state championships.

“We hope that magic is what lies underneath the surface and what we produce on top of it,” Weiner said