How big is football in this town, you ask?

It’s big enough that the annual showdown between Napa and Vintage is known as the Big Game with Roman numerals designating the year.

It’s big enough that the game is a huge community event, drawing about 7,000 fans, many of whom arrive in the late afternoon to get a good seat.

It’s big enough that school officials printed colorful souvenir-type tickets for the 2008 game.

It’s big enough that the halftime show is extended a few extra minutes.

It’s big enough that the high schools host special activities — including bonfires, rallies, luncheons — during the week leading up to the game.

It’s big enough that the noise generated by the crowd can be heard from several miles away.

It’s big enough that KVON-1440 AM awards the winning team a Victory Bell.

It’s big enough that KTVU-Channel 2 was on hand to carry highlights of last year’s game, which the station promoted as a “wine country showdown.” The intra-city contest was voted as the “KTVU High School Football Game of the Week.”

It’s big enough that extra bleacher seating in the north and south end zones is made available to accommodate what is easily the largest crowd of the year.

And yes, it’s big enough that even George Toma, the NFL field guru who is in charge of Super Bowl preparations, visited historic Napa Memorial Stadium years ago and made some recommendations to the Napa Valley Unified School District on how to improve the playing surface.

“Coaches rave all the time about being able to play a game in that stadium,” said Troy Mott, who has won two Monticello Empire League titles and a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship in three years as Napa’s head coach. “There’s an old-style kind of look and feel to the stadium. It’s so fan-friendly. You just don’t get the same atmosphere at any other place we play.

“It’s a pride thing when people from other communities come and say how great of a facility it is.”

You won’t find too many places like Memorial Stadium around the country.

Several years ago, the stadium made it into the Sporting News’ high school football edition for being among the top 13 places in the country to spend a fall Friday. Napa came in at No. 3.

Last year, the stadium was recognized by ESPNRISE.com as the fourth-best facility in the U.S. for football. Napa and Vintage also use the facility, which dates back to the 1950s, for boys and girls soccer.

With no track and the stands in such close proximity to the field, fans are literally right on top of the action, getting a close-up view that they won’t find anywhere else.

But after 50-some years as serving as a centerpiece for interscholastic athletics, the aging facility is getting a facelift. Work on the stadium began last summer with the installation of new lights.

There is more to come. A lot more.

Thanks to the passage of Measure G in November of 2006, a total of $12 million will be used to perform a seismic upgrade and bring the stadium into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I think that the community ... will find that the new facility will be an enhancement over what we have now,” said Don Evans, director of school planning and construction for NVUSD. “It’s going to be a little different. The presentation as you walk up to the facility will be more dynamic than it is now. It’s going to make a positive statement — that we appreciate this facility and what takes place inside this facility.

“I think people will come to say they like the new Memorial Stadium. I really believe that they’re going to come away feeling that there’s been vast improvements over the way the facility operates and the way it feels and the viewing positions that people will have. They’ll all be positive.”

Following the 2009 football season, the whole place — stands, field, concession booths, entrance, goal posts — will be torn down. Then the rebuilding of Memorial Stadium will begin.

“Everything comes out of here — the entire thing,” said Evans. “The field will come out, the bleachers will come out, the concrete all around it, the Quonsets will come down. Everything you see here will just be completely leveled.

“It has served us well for 50-plus years, but it’s very tired.”

Evans estimates that the stadium won’t be ready until October of 2010, around the time that the Monticello Empire League season starts. This means that graduation ceremonies will take place somewhere else, and that Napa and Vintage will have to look for alternative sites for home games during the nonleague season.

“It would be a true miracle if I could get them in here by the first of September,” said Evans, who is working with the design teams of Jay Beals & Associates from Sacramento and Quattrocchi Kwok Architects from Santa Rosa. “I just don’t think that’s possible. But I do think that I can get them in here my the middle of October. There’s just a lot of work to do.

“Even if we’re not complete, we’ll come in here and still play. I’m not saying that we’ll have this absolutely 100 percent in the middle of October, but we’ll have it operational — the bleachers will be in, they’ll be safe, and we’ll have the restrooms operational.”

Memorial Stadium will take on a brand new look in 2010 with new bleachers, which will be higher off the ground while also increasing the capacity to almost 7,000; a new main entrance and plaza with larger concession areas near the south end of the field, which will include ramps and steps going up to the ticket booths; elevators will go to new working press boxes on both sides of the field that are bigger, where writers can actually sit down and have a work station to cover an event; a wider field to accommodate soccer, new team rooms and a synthetic all-weather field, replacing the bermuda grass, a new scoreboard and new goal posts.

“We’ll put in the highest quality synthetic field surface we can buy,” said Evans.

The project also calls for additional rest rooms and lighting.

“I’m really hoping that it can maintain the same feel and the same atmosphere that it’s always had,” Mott said Monday. “We have such a homefield advantage with the design of our stadium and also the great community support.”

When I met with Evans in January and walked around the stadium, he pointed out areas of the cement bleachers that have had to be reinforced over the years after being examined by structural engineers.

The new steel and aluminum bleachers, said Evans, will be same for each side of the field, and will have a curvature to them. They will be almost twice the size in height as the current stands.

“It’s going to be what you see at most new facilities,” he said.

With coaches, players, school officials, alumni and the community all saying good-bye to the old stadium later this year, I would suggest for the NVUSD to consider selling pieces of the facility before it’s demolished. That includes the field. The money could be put into a fund to help pay for the project.

I’m sure if Lambeau Field, Notre Dame Stadium, Wrigley Field or Fenway Park ever got rid of its playing field, people would line up for blocks, wanting to take a piece of history home with them.

“We would consider it,” said Evans. “What we would need to do is work out a logistics program with the general contractor so that we didn’t interfere. This is going to be a very tight construction schedule.

“Certainly, it could be a way to benefit us and help us fill that gap in terms of our dollars and what we might need to go to.”

E-mail Executive Sports Editor Marty James at mjames@napanews.com or call 256-2223.