 The decision to use a black surface came about when the school's original green FieldTurf surface, installed in 2002, needed replacing.FieldTurf offered the school a discount of nearly $140,000 from the regular $437,000 replacement cost if it used an "unusual" color; West Salem chose black since it was a school color and also had not previously been used by another school.The school changed its home uniform color from black to green in order to avoid possible complaints by visiting teams about the uniforms blending into the field.