HOBART | Wally McCormack walked around the Brickie Bowl on Wednesday, looking at the living, breathing history. The place that was built in 1939 -- and been a part of the Hobart Brickies winning four state finals, playing in 11 championship games and winning 19 straight sectional titles -- is slowly dying. The ghosts of yesterday will soon not have Friday nights to look down on.

How many prep football facilities have a history of fans looking down on a Friday night from a railroad track, or sitting on tree branches in a pouring rainstorm to root on the local heroes in a big game? This cracked and weathered fortress saw Hobart win 71 consecutive home games in the 1980s.

"There's no place like it in the world," McCormack said.

But with a new high school close to completion, and a new football stadium getting ProGrass synthetic turf installed this week, Hobart likely has only six regular-season games left at the grand old lady, that saw all those great Brickies for nearly seven decades.

"No place I've ever been, including the (RCA) Dome, has an environment like this place for a high school football game," McCormack said. "The crowds, the trains, the people looking down from their backyards, there's no place like it. Before our sectional championship game against Griffith, right before kickoff, this place was crazy.

"You can't build that."

But building "it" they are. According to Hobart athletic director Bob Glover, the students will move to the new school after Christmas break in the upcoming school year, after the football season is completed. The turf will be on the field in the coming days, but much of the stadium's exterior has yet to be completed.

For example, the visitor bleachers are only half done.

"More than likely this is our last year at The Bowl," Glover said. "We won't go to the new field until the entire complex is completed. It is unlikely that we'll be at Brickie Bowl after this season."

Unless, of course, the community decides to play one last home game at Brickie Bowl in the 2009 season, one last Friday night underneath history's umbrella.

"We've talked about letting people come back for one last game where they know it's the last game ever," Glover said. "If we did it in the playoffs this year, you never know for sure when your last game will be."

Heavy spring rains and typical construction delays have left a lot of things up in the air, Glover said. There are still uncertainties out there when it comes to where Hobart will play home football and when. Glover said it's possible that if the construction speeds up that a decision to move the Brickies to the new stadium could happen.

Well, maybe.

"The (football) field will be done in a week or two," Glover said. "But we're not sure when the entire stadium will be done."

Hobart's image is much like rivals Griffith and Lowell -- tough, blue-collar kids who would rather run through 12 inches of mud during a storm than throw 60-yard passes in the sunshine. But images, like gridirons, change. And when the Brickies run out onto synthetic turf, the stereotype will have to be altered.

"We've always been known as mudders," Glover said. "Now, it will be different."

Glover said while the reasons for changing are plentiful, going through the last farewell will not be. Hobart is likely the only school in Indiana that only has a gym and a swimming pool inside the school. Every other sport must drive around town to find their places to play. When the new school at Union and 10th streets is done, the logistical nightmare will be, too.

But, sadly, so will The Bowl.

"I'll have tears in my eyes," said Glover, a life-long Hobart resident. "I went to school there, I saw all those games. I used to go as a kid and watch games on the track. It will be emotional when we see the last game there. A lot of blood, sweat and tears were shed in that place.

"It will be bittersweet. We're anxious to get to the new school. Things move on. We'll be OK."

While no definitive plan has been made for the Brickie Bowl, Glover said he does not believe, when the Brickies are running on plastic grass, that Hobart will allow The Bowl to rot.

"You won't find a compose pile there," he said. "There's too much history and heritage to not respect it."