WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Even at tradition-rich Williams College and in the tradition-mad Ephs football program, a little change can be a good thing.

 

And on Saturday afternoon, Williams makes its biggest change since it retired its leather helmets with the opening of Farley-Lamb Field at the renovated Weston Field athletic complex.

 

At Wednesday's weekly luncheon of the Ephs' booster club, the talk was of Bowdoin and bathrooms.

 

The Polar Bears have the honor of being Williams' first opponent on the new artificial turf field.

 

While student-athletes will enjoy on-site locker rooms, fans can look forward to greater proximity to the field, a better sound system, a scoreboard that everyone can read and better amenities.

 

"We have more women's restrooms in that building than on the whole campus," Williams head coach Aaron Kelton joked before an appreciative crowd at the weekly Sideline Quarterback Club meeting.

 

"There won't be a line for the women's room all the way down to the street."

 

While Kelton was kidding about the actual number of lavatories, there is no doubt that the fan experience will be enhanced at the new facility, part of a $22 million overhaul to Weston Field that includes a new field hockey/lacrosse and track complex adjacent to the football field.

 

The decision to eschew grass is a literal game-changer for Williams, which has won 634 games in 128 seasons of football, the sixth highest win total in Division III college football.

 

"It's good as a receiving corps to be on that turf," Williams assistant coach Scott Farley said. "It makes their cuts a little easier than on the muddy field I played on."

 

For the record, Farley did OK on that muddy field, earning all-America honors in 2002 before a pro career that landed him in NFL Europe as a team captain on the Berlin Thunder.

 

Farley helped Williams go 15-1 in 2001-02 playing for his father, Dick Farley, the namesake of the new field along with longtime Williams assistant football coach Renzie Lamb.

 

Now the younger Farley is helping Kelton bring Williams back to prominence in the region after going 11-13 over the last three seasons.

 

The new football complex -- which puts Williams at least on par with every team in the New England Small College Athletic Conference -- could figure prominently into the hoped for renaissance.

 

"I'm pushing all my guys in recruiting to get them up here," Kelton said, referring to the field. "If they get up here and see it, they're going to say, 'I want to go to Williams because I can play there.' "

 

Notes: Saturday's 2 p.m. kickoff is the first of four home games for the Ephs this fall. The athletic complex will be dedicated on the day of the third home game, Oct. 11, when the football team is home against Middlebury and the field hockey team hosts Wesleyan in games scheduled to run simultaneously. ... Parking figures to be a little tight on Saturday as the college lets the grass take hold in the lot behind the new home grandstand. Williams hopes to allow parking there later this season, but for now fans are directed to the Taconic Golf Club lot, the Lansing Chapman rink lot and the vacant town-owned property at 59 Water St. ... Among the leading candidates for Williams' starting quarterback job on Saturday is Boston College transfer Austin Lommen, who threw for 7,456 yards and 88 touchdowns in three seasons at Minnesota's Breck School, where he led his team to conference championships three times.

 

More photos from Williams' scrimmage against Amherst on the Ephs' new field here.