The turf field installation has generated mixed reactions among coaches, the administration and the student body.

An anonymous donor contributed money for the entire cost of turf field installments at Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School. The district will be paying the construction company, O.C. Jones & Sons, Inc., an estimated $2.6 million.

Some approve of the installation for its advantages. “I think that it’s a good move because there are so many different sports that use it,” football team Defense Coordinator Mark Weisman said. Others disagree. “We should spend the [money] on something else, because we already have a good enough field,” sophomore JV track team member Taimu Yamauchi said.

Senior softball player Elizabeth Rea said that she thinks that the turf may help the performance of the football, baseball, lacrosse and soccer teams. Weisman agrees. “You should have more sure-footing,” he said. Others say that while it will not affect the performance of the teams, the turf will draw more viewers to the games. “I think that it might benefit the teams in the area of showmanship and maybe help attendance because it will look nicer, but not in the actual gameplay of the sport,” sophomore Daniel DiGiacomo, who was on the JV football team last season, said.

Others, like sophomore JV track team member Alex Johann, who first saw turf at a Los Altos High School meet, said that the replacement will affect the runners, who sometimes lie down on the grass to cool down. “The turf field absorbs all of this heat which makes it uncomfortable to lie down on,” Johann said. “There are these black rubber things that collect heat. [But] it’s not really going to change our performance.”

According to Rea, the addition of turf field may cause fewer injuries than the grass field does. “Someone turned her ankle during a warm up jog [on the grass], and it got all swollen,” Rea said. Others say that the grass is not the sports injuries scapegoat. “I don’t think that we can blame the grass,” DiGiacomo said. “You get a lot of injuries in football. I heard that people get more injuries on turf fields because of burns.”

According to Assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky, one positive outcome of having turf rather than grass is that it will reduce the water usage at Gunn, along with the amount of maintenance needed as well. “There is a more consistent surface, and it won’t fall apart,” he said. In addition, the grass no longer needs to be painted, Weisman added.

The removal of the grass fields has also inspired freshman Sophia Christel, who said that she loves birds, to see if the construction will affect the swallows that use the mud from the football field to build their nest. “Swallows build their nests out of mud,” Christel said. “I noticed that they have been using mud from the football field.”

Christel originally formed a Facebook group titled, “Don’t Evict The Swallows! Keep the Gunn Field Grass!,” claiming that the birds’ homes will be destroyed due to the removal of their house-building material.

However, some said that they think that the birds can still use mud from other areas on campus. “I don’t think that it would make a big difference,” DiGiacomo said. “The practice field is still made up of sticks and dirt. They’re just flattening the grass. The birds still have access to the same things.”

Christel later changed her views on the situation. “I realized that the others were right,” she said. “There is still a lot of mud around. There probably won’t be any serious effects.” After her realization, Christel formed a new online group devoted to her research called “Environmental/Ornithological Research: Cliff Swallows at Gunn High School.” Christel is taking before and after photos of the area where the swallows commonly inhabit, counting the birds’ nests, making sure that the administration will not knock down the nests and watching for young birds to oversee potential changes in the birds’ habits. “The [swallows] might change their location,” Christel said. “They will probably start resting on the other side of the gym and under the overhangs on Spangenberg.”

Christel said that she may have noticed some changes in the location of the birds’ nests, and has seen nests on the side of the boys’ locker room and overhangings of Spangenberg. “I noticed some nests [there] a week after construction started,” she said. “I think the birds may have moved there because the remaining nesting material was closer. I can’t tell that much yet. It’s more of a year-long project.”