Fans attending Friday night’s Keith High School football game will notice a major change.

Gone from the Bears’ stadium turf are the barren patches of dirt that marked the landscape over the summer. Instead, the field’s sandy, dusty conditions have been replaced by a field of fresh grass.

This metamorphosis from a near dustbowl with just patchy areas of lawn to one where green is the dominant color come from one man’s dream and a team’s inspired efforts to turn the dream into a reality.

When Keith coach Harry Crum viewed his team’s field weeks prior to summer practice, he didn’t like what he saw.

“It was compact, like a dirt road,” Crum said. “It wasn’t a surface you would want your kids playing on.”

The thought of his players suffering serious injury on a desolate playing surface was too much for Crum to bear. He formulated a plan to change things in a hurry.

Crum organized a fundraiser in which his players sold chocolate candy to raise the money necessary to fund his project.

“The kids worked really hard,” Crum said. “They put a lot of time and effort into this and they have every right to be proud of what they accomplished.”

What the Bears accomplished in such a short time was amazing. According to Crum, the team raised more than $2,000 to help pay for the restoration of their field.

From there, Crum went to work on the field that had not been aerated for four years.

First, Crum sprayed the entire field with weed killer. He then employed the help of a local man to plow the field twice. On June 12, Crum planted the seeds that would grow into a field of turf-type Bermuda grass.

“We caught a break,” Crum said, “in that it rained 17 of the 20 days after I planted the seeds.”

Sowing the seeds for the Bears’ new field was just the beginning for Crum. From there, the coach began digging trenches for the new sprinkler system that was to be installed.

“I probably spent a good eight hours digging,” he said.

Crum realized how expensive it would be to have someone install the new system. So he instead spent the next few days doing the work himself.

“I installed 21 pop-up heads all over the field,” Crum said. “It took me three days to make all the connections. I probably saved us $3,000 by doing the work myself.”

The work, however, isn’t quite finished – at least in Crum’s eyes. The Bears’ coach said he hopes to have several of his players paint the goal posts before next Friday’s game against R.C. Hatch.

Crum said by this time next year he hopes to have a reel mower to help maintain the field.

“The kind that you cut golf courses with,” he said. “If we can get that, we’ll have everything we need to take care of the field.”