The Fourth of July is already in the rearview mirror, so it's not too early to think about football, is it? It's not for the crew busy giving RCTC's football field a new look.

That's because crews have been hard at work all week at Rochester Regional Stadium, just off County Road 22 and Collegeview Road in southeast Rochester, installing new, state-of-the-art artificial turf.

Plans to upgrade the playing surface at the home of the Rochester Community and Technical College Yellowjack football and soccer teams were announced earlier this year. According to this RCTC release, the project will install new artificial turf on the playing surface and will cost $600,000-- which will be split between usage fees (60 percent) and RCTC budget funds (40 percent).

And, according to the RCTC Twitter page, crews laid down the very first strip of the new surface on Wednesday (check the picture below). It'll be fully installed and ready to go for the Yellowjacket's first scrimmage against the Navy/Gold team on Friday, August 16th.

The stadium, of course, is also the home of The Bubble, which surrounds the field with a giant, inflatable dome. It's always interesting to me to see the crews install The Bubble each year-- it goes up the second or third week of November and allows sports teams and clubs to use it during our long Minnesota winter. They take it down each spring during the second or third week of April.

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

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