A worker drives his tractor past the newly installed goalposts while smoothing out the gravel at Athens Stadium Friday afternoon.

People who have driven past Athens Stadium the past two weeks might think not much work has been done on the artificial turf field installation. However, they would be wrong, said Athens City Schools Superintendent Trey Holladay.

While white gravel has been laid out on the field for the past two weeks, it is the size of the gravel that has changed.

“There are three different sizes of gravel for drainage purposes,” Holladay said. “They lay down the different types of gravel and then compact them.”

The largest pieces of gravel were laid first, then smoothed and compacted. Crews laid down a second layer of smaller gravel, then laid and compacted a top layer of the smallest gravel. Once all of the gravel is smoothed and compacted, work on the actual field can begin.

“They installed the goalposts a few days ago, and it’s my understanding they’re going to start putting turf on the field next week,” Holladay said. “That was the timeline about a week ago, and the only thing that would push them off of that might be the rain we had last week. But to my understanding, the turf will start going down next week.”

The artificial turf is replacing the stadium’s natural grass, which had numerous issues with drainage, as part of a wish list devised by the school district in 2017. The grass was removed in May, and some of it was sold.

The entire replacement is expected to cost $812,000, but officials have said it will pay for itself by eliminating the cost of mowing, fertilizing, aerating, seeding, weed killing, painting and otherwise maintaining the stadium field.

The artificial turf has a 10-year warranty but could last up to 20 years before being completely replaced, Holladay said.

The field consists of different products for drainage, a couple of different base layers, a pad layer and the turf, which has tiny foam and rubber beads in it for added softness.

Athens High will host Gardendale Aug. 30 in its opening game of the 2019 season, and Holladay said the expectation is the team will be playing that game on its new turf.

He said if the turf is not ready by then, the game would most likely be moved to Gardendale.

“There really isn’t a Plan B right now, because we were so far out in front on this, there was no need for a backup plan,” Holladay said. “I would say if there is a backup plan, it would be going to the opposing team’s field to play. But I’m not expecting any problems.”