Nothing is better than Friday nights in the Ram Bowl, except for Friday nights in the NEW and IMPROVED Ram Bowl. Get ready for all the excitement and some awesome football on a completely renovated field.

Construction on the field started in March, and it has been going on every day since, sometimes even overnight. To say this has been a big project, would be an understatement, according to Coach Todd Johnson, who graduated from Riverview in 1998 and was a teacher at Riverview while being head coach of the Ram football team from 2011-2016.

“The field was raised approximately 2.5 feet, and a state-of-the-art artificial custom field was installed. The new field in the Ram Bowl is a very high-quality product that even has one of the newer systems that prevents the on-field temperature from skyrocketing like the majority of turf fields. Instead of black rubber pellets as the top layer, it has finely chopped up wood chips which keeps the temperature down,” Johnson said.

He explained that having the new field will be a huge advantage to the Rams since they will be able to practice on their “game field” on a much more regular basis. Another benefit Johnson emphasized is the fact that the changes give more space for the team to be able to spread out practice efficiently.

Johnson also explained that the football team has had some issues in the past, which resulted in holding the team back from opportunities for games and practices.

“With the new field in place, this is a concern we will no longer have,” Johnson said.

“Our improved field will be in excellent condition 365 days a year, and we won’t have to worry about cancelling games due to poor field conditions,” he added.

The field needs to be raked about once every three weeks, but a huge benefit is that it never has to be mowed or painted. As for work that still needs to be done on the field, there are some minor details to be completed-- installing play clocks, planting a few trees and adding some Ram Nation logos.

The biggest project yet to come is that the rubber track still needs to be installed in December. Johnson boasted the fact that the rubber track will provide a “premier running service” for Ram athletes and emphasized that this will offer a huge boost for the track team this season. Meanwhile, the Ram football team has been hard at work, and they have been putting hours of practice on their new field.

Ram fans, get ready to cheer loud because this season is looking like one for the books!