GONZALES >> The thought of a synthetic turf playing field didn’t immediately appeal to Gonzales High football coach Eddy Ramirez.

Yet, as he drives by the school’s renovated stadium, Ramirez can’t take his eyes off the plush facility he will call home again.

“As a traditionalist, I will miss the grass,” said Ramirez, a Gonzales graduate. “A lot of blood, sweat and tears has soaked into that ground. But this is special.”

A vision some four years in the making for a new turf field and all-weather track has come to fruition with the completion of Spartan Stadium.

“It doesn’t feel real,” said Gonzales athletic director and track coach Margie Daniels. “Honestly, I get emotional talking about it. I need to pinch myself. It’s surreal.”

Gone is a gopher-invested Bermuda grass field, along with an uneven dirt track, with dips in parts that left puddles of water for weeks following a storm.

In its place is an enhanced football/soccer synthetic turf field, surrounded by a bright orange eight-lane all-weather track that glistens under the sun.

“Oh my god, how can I put it?” Gonzales soccer coach Miguel Vidauri said. “I was going over there every day to check the process out. Seeing this is like a dream.”

The stadium’s first official event will be graduation on June 7, although Daniels acted as a pace car and took the first official lap around the track earlier this week.

Daniels was allowed to let her 400-meter relay team conduct the first official practice on Wednesday on the track in preparation for Friday’s league championships.

“This is one of the best relay teams I’ve had as a coach,” Daniels said. “But we’ve struggled all year with handoffs because we’ve had no relay zones to practice in. We’ve been practicing on a baseball field.”

A bond that was passed in 2021 for the upgrades to the stadium, includes ramps to the bleachers to accommodate the disabled, as well as a new sound system, an upgraded snack shack and a fence around the track.

“There is a lot of orange from the street,” Ramirez said.

In the middle of the field is a big ‘G’ that stretches 10 yards in length. The turf in the end zones are black with orange letters of “Gonzales” in one end zone and “Spartans” in the other.

Each sideline has a 4-foot white strip starting from each 25-yard line to signal where players and coaches are allowed to stand.

Soccer dimensions were outlined in yellow to clarify the field of play, as soccer uses primarily the entire width of the field.

Last year Vidauri took Gonzales into uncharted waters as the program won a Central Coast Section title and reached the Northern California Division IV title match.

The Spartans established a new single-season school record for wins with 20, while playing all of their matches on the road for the second straight year.

“Just stepping on it, you can tell it’s good turf,” Vidauri said. “We took our team picture for the yearbook on the field last week. Being a Gonzales alum, this is incredible.”

A stimulating orange track might be hard to miss from space, as the all-weather facility paints a picture of speed, with the lane exchanges in black, with white lane numbers. The runways for the vertical jumps are on the visiting side.

Converted from a dirt yard track to meters, the facility has a view of the mountains to the west. A discus cage is being installed this week near the scoreboard, with the pole vault, high jump and shot put facilities on the opposite side of the stadium.

“It’s been a challenge this year with no facility,” Daniels said. “But we still had 70 kids come out.”

Daniels moved the high jump pits and hurdles to one of the baseball fields this year. Practices occurred in hallways, anywhere there was a dry strip of land around the campus.

“It is emotional for Mike (Ramirez) and I,” Daniels said. “We’ve endured a lot as coaches to build our program. You think back to the struggles we’ve gone through to make it work.”

While Gonzales isn’t the first program that comes to mind as a track power, it has produced three Central Coast Section champions in the past.

“This is an incredible community,” Daniels said. “It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed. Now we have something to be proud of — to show off.”

Outside of York School, Gonzales was the last high school to have a dirt track in Monterey County. It becomes the first school in South County to have a turf playing field.

“I have driven by and peeked at it,” Eddy Ramirez said. “But I have yet to set foot on the facility. I’m so grateful for the updates. I’m hoping we get to use it for spring ball.”

Ramirez, who has seen his football program improve in the win column four consecutive years, also hopes it will increase Gonzales’ numbers this fall for football.

“We talk about it all the time,” Ramirez said. “Mostly it’s been a reminder to stay off the field until we get permission. I’m hoping more kids will get excited as well.”

Football will be the first official sporting event on the facility, when the Spartans host Scotts Valley on Aug. 29, with long-time rival King City the following week.

“I’m looking forward to playing a home game,” said Ramirez, who played all 10 games on the road last fall, finishing 6-4 overall.

During Daniel’s practice Wednesday, several vehicles drove into the parking lot at different times just to marvel at the facility. Talk of a fieldhouse in the future on the west side of the stadium remains on the table.

“The athletes are talking about it,” Daniels said. “A lot of alumni have checked in. I’m hoping to get as many former track athletes as possible out here sometime this month to celebrate this moment.”