Tip your hat to tradition, but say goodbye to the scenery, insect invasions, cold cabins, rainouts, too-short fields, phone-free days and prank-filled nights.

Progress took another step further Thursday, as Arizona State’s football team announced a preseason practice schedule that includes only one day at Camp Tontozona — ASU’s August retreat near Payson since 1960.

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The Sun Devils will have a scrimmage at Tontozona on Aug. 16, but will spend the rest of their 18 activity days prior to the season-opening week against Northern Arizona by staying in Tempe.

“We’re honoring ASU’s great Camp Tontozona tradition by holding a scrimmage there for everyone to enjoy,” football coach Dennis Erickson said in a statement while on vacation.

But that’s it.

Everything else will be conducted outdoors at the Kajikawa practice facility or inside the school’s new, $8.4 million privately-funded practice bubble on campus.

Construction of the practice bubble with FieldTurf is expected to be completed by early August, so the school decided to try out its new toy immediately, while helping to reduce travel and lodging costs associated with two weeks at Tontozona for 100 participants.

The university owns the Tontozona land used for meetings and band camps, but an athletic department spokesman said it costs the football program between $75,000 to $100,000 per season to use the property.

“We’re in a test pattern in August to see how this is going to go,” ASU athletic director Lisa Love said of the camp switch. “We anticipate it’s going to be fantastic and coaches will be in situations they can get what they want accomplished. There’s a sense they’ll get a lot more done.”

Conscious of Camp Tontozona’s lore within the program for Sun Devils fans, Love expressed a desire to keep the team’s annual intra-squad scrimmage up north.

“We’re not willing to give up that special Saturday chit-chat, and camp along the side of the hill, and cars lined up down the road,” she said. “We’ll keep honoring that. I don’t forget that kind of impression. It was a gift turning onto the gravel road and hearing the sounds of football practice.”

Practice at Tontozona was conceived on-the-spot by former coach Frank Kush when he drove by the ASU-owned retreat during a fishing trip in 1960. The story goes he began leveling the land before he received permission from anyone at ASU or the NCAA.

It was, he admitted in later years, a fireable offense, but a tradition was born.

Several coaches since Kush have privately expressed annoyance with Tontozona because of frequent practice cancellations due to weather, fields too short for kicking, excessive injuries, no phone lines to make recruiting calls, torn fields and ill-equipped facilities.

Kush was on vacation Thursday and couldn’t be reached for comment, but told the Tribune in August 2007: “It would be a big mistake. You’re never going to build the kind of unity and family atmosphere you have up at Tontozona if you just practice down here (in Tempe).”

A month ago, former ASU quarterback and current radio analyst Jeff Van Raaphorst took a friend to Tontozona to do some cliff-jumping nearby. His friend, a fan of another Pac-10 team, laughed as he was told about ASU’s decision to replace Tontozona with a new practice facility.

Van Raaphorst knows his decade of August memories will remain, and though the player in him will miss the tomfoolery and watching coaches run up Kush Mountain, the businessman in him knows it’s about ASU trying to compete with college football’s “big boys.”

“It’s going to be a sentimental issue and they’ll have issues on that, but if you ran a business you would have a normal workday shift, a better work environment, climate,” he said of the switch. “A company would jump on this in a heartbeat.

“If I’m Erickson, I take pictures of the area and Kush Mountain, and put them up on one side of the bubble wall and open it up to the public.”

Save for one day this year, and perhaps future years, photos and nostalgia will be all that remains, as ASU football moves closer toward an era of climate controls, weight rooms, meeting rooms and laundry rooms in the same space.

No more gravel roads, crowded sidelines, swimming holes and bug bites.

Like it or not.

“When you’re up there, all the players have is each other,” Kush said. “Tontozona is part of this program’s tradition.”

ASU PRACTICE SCHEDULE

Monday, August 4: 6:15-8:30 p.m. (Kajikawa Practice Facility)

Tuesday, August 5: 6:15-8:30 p.m. (Kajikawa)

Wednesday, August 6: 6:15-8:30 p.m. (Kajikawa)

Thursday, August 7: 6:15-8:30 p.m. (Kajikawa)

Friday, August 8: 6:15-8:30 p.m. (Kajikawa)

Saturday, August 9: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa); 4:15-6:30 p.m. (Indoor Facility)

Sunday, August 10: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa)

Monday, August 11: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa); 4:15-6:30 p.m. (Indoor Facility)

Tuesday, August 12: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa)

Wednesday, August 13: 8:30-11 a.m. (Kajikawa); 4:15-6:30 p.m. (Indoor Facility)

Thursday, August 14: 8:30-11 a.m. (Kajikawa)

Friday, August 15: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa); Depart For Camp Tontozona at 4 p.m.

Saturday, August 16: (Camp Tontozona scrimmage), 11:15 a.m.-1:45 p.m.; Depart For Tempe At 3:15 p.m.

Sunday, August 17: No Practice

Monday, August 18: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa); 4-6:15 p.m. (Indoor Facility)

Tuesday, August 19: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa);

Wednesday, August 20: 8:30-10:45 a.m. (Kajikawa); 4-6:15 p.m. (Indoor Facility)

Thursday, August 21: (scrimmage) 7-9 p.m. (Sun Devil Stadium) (Fan Appreciation Day)

Friday, August 22-Sunday August 24: No public practice

Saturday, August 30: ASU vs. NAU (Sun Devil Stadium), 7 p.m.