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Turf 2020 and Beyond


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2 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

FYI Darwin has a giant math problem that even he couldn’t solve. Since Darwin published his work, we have discovered many new technologies, most notably in Darwin’s case DNA. My point was Darwin based everything on 19th Century data, new technologies have merely exacerbated his math problem. Darwin is wrong because his data is old and outdated. 

So you don't believe in evolution?  Everything on the planet earth sprung fully formed from the forehead of <insert deity here>, and they have never changed since?

 

1 hour ago, Coach Harvey said:

Here you go @Muda69

A study completed in 2011 found that there is no scientific evidence to support concern that the turf is harboring the bacteria that causes MRSA. Serensits TJ, McNitt AS, Peterunak DM. Human health issues on synthetic turf in the USA. J Sports Eng. & Tech. 2011;225(Part P). DOI:10.1177/1754337111398407.

Furthermore, a study completed in 2004 found that while turf burn may open up the skin for infection, the bacteria was actually being transmitted in the locker room. Begier et al. 2004. A High-Morbidity Outbreak of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus among Players on a College Football Team, Facilitated by Cosmetic Body Shaving and Turf Burns. Clin Inf Dis. 2004;39:1446-53.

If you need more studies which reinforce the above here is some light reading for you: 

Serensits, T J, et al. “Human Health Issues on Synthetic Turf in the USA.” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part P: Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology, vol. 225, no. 3, 13 June 2011, pp. 139–146, plantscience.psu.edu/research/centers/ssrc/documents/human-health-issues-on-synthetic-turf-in-the-usa.pdf, 10.1177/1754337111398407.

THE SYNTHETIC TURF COUNCIL On the Research Project SURVIVAL OF Staphylococcus Aureus ON SYNTHETIC TURF College of Agricultural Sciences

For Athletes. 2019, www.cdc.gov/mrsa/community/team-hc-providers/advice-for-athletes.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fmrsa%2Fgroups%2Fadvice-for-athletes.html. Accessed 11 May 2019.

Thank you.  Can you please provide the URL to the original cited work.

 

 

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https://www.uhhospitals.org/for-clinicians/articles-and-news/articles/2019/08/artificial-turf-versus-natural-grass

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The University Hospitals Sports Medicine Institute partners with more than 50 area high schools to keep their athletes injury free. With that goal in mind, the department decided to analyze data to compare injury rates on artificial versus natural playing surfaces among high school athletes — both male and female — for all sports played on a field.

Using UH Sports Medicine Institute's school-based electronic medical record (EMR) system, physician-researchers from University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University and UH Sports Medicine Institute analyzed data collected by 26 high school athletic trainers during the 2017-2018 athletic seasons. 

They found athletes were 58 percent more likely to sustain an injury during athletic activity on artificial turf. Injury rates were significantly higher for football, girls and boys soccer, and rugby athletes. Lower extremity, upper extremity, and torso injuries were also found to occur with a higher incidence on artificial turf.

Previous studies, although less comprehensive, back the UH Sports Medicine Institute team's findings. A systematic review published last year evaluated the risk of ACL injuries in football and soccer athletes playing on artificial and natural grass surfaces. The authors found an increased rate of ACL injury in football athletes playing on artificial turf compared with natural grass, but no increased risk in soccer. 

Although artificial turf quality has improved dramatically during the past five to 10 years, studies suggest athletes should take preventive measures when playing on artificial turf. "Our study highlights the need to educate high school athletes on the importance of having the right shoes and cleats," says James Voos, MD, Chair of the University Hospitals Department of Orthopaedics, and Associate Professor of Orthopaedics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, "Schools also need to adequately maintain the turf to the appropriate quality to reduce injury risk."

STUDY DETAILS

Researchers identified a total of 953 injuries during the 2017-2018 athletic seasons, with 585 of them occurring on synthetic turf and 368 on natural grass. Researchers then performed subgroup analysis to determine injuries that took place on artificial turf versus natural grass based on injury location (lower extremity, upper extremity, torso), sport, level of competitive play (freshman, junior varsity, varsity), and practice versus competition injuries.

Breaking it down, injuries in upper and lower extremities and torso occurred more frequently on artificial turf than on natural grass. When analyzing by sport, researchers found that football, men's lacrosse, rugby, and girls and boys soccer had higher rates of injury than other sports. Although no statistically significant difference was found in level of play, there was a higher level of competition injury compared with injuries sustained in practice.

Dr. Voos says the team plans to publish the study this year. They presented their findings at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) 2019 Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, in June 2019. With the study complete, the next step is to research the impact of factors such as turf quality, shoe wear and injury prevention programs on injury rates, especially during competition.

 

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https://villagegreennj.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/The-Problems-with-Artificial-Turf.pdf

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Summary

Artificial turf fields pose threats to player health, the environment, and community budgets.

Players on artificial turf face health risks which appear inherent to this product. 1) Artificial turf fields become dangerously hot, causing skin injury and heat exhaustion. Despite a decade of research, the industry has failed to make them cooler. 2) Joint injuries (including ACL tears) are more common on artificial turf because of the increased traction of this surface compared to natural grass. 3) Concussion has emerged as a risk on artificial turf, requiring ongoing expenditure and active field maintenance to mitigate. 4) Players on artificial turf are also exposed to toxic dust and gases as field components abrade and heat up. Especially at high temperatures, artificial turf emits volatile organic compounds including benzothiazole and nhexadane. Particulate matter from artificial turf includes silica, carbon black, lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium and other heavy metals. A study by an expert on children’s exposure to lead suggests children on artificial turf fields are playing in a “significant particulate cloud.”

Consumers may be unaware of these risks because agencies they trust to test product safety – the U.S. E.P.A. and the Consumer Product Safety Commission – instead acted between 2003 and 2015 as the marketing department of the industry they were supposed to regulate. The turf field boom was initially promoted by the EPA as a way of confronting a waste tire disposal crisis. By 2015, faced with a cancer cluster among soccer goalies, and under Congressional investigation, the agencies no longer claimed artificial turf is safe (“‘Safe to play on‘ means something to parents that I don’t think we intended to convey”), but not before thousands of fields were installed across the country.

Artificial turf has many negative impacts on the environment. An artificial turf field creates a “heat island” hotter than asphalt, off-gasses VOC’s, requires removal of organic soil and trees, requires regular treatment with chemicals, disperses 7000 lbs on average of microplastics annually into the environment, prevents groundwater recharge, contributes to flooding, contributes to global warming, and as each field wears out, requires disposal of 500,000 lbs of (mostly petroleum) waste every decade.

Artificial turf is ruinous to school or municipal budgets. An artificial turf field involves steep upfront costs upon installation ($1 million and up); routine maintenance costs similar to or greater than the cost of maintaining a grass field ($25,000/year and up); the not-uncommon risk of ‘premature failure’ of the field – leading to litigation, added expense and lost playing time; and the cost of disposal every ten years ($200,000 and up), a cost which is guaranteed to rise.

..

(detailed analysis of the above points follow in linked PDF)

..

Artificial turf fields were promoted in the context of a ‘pro-business,’ ‘pro-petroleum’ political/economic environment, in which the urgency of solving the waste tire crisis outweighed the responsibility to protect the environment and children’s health.

There is reason to hope this will not continue to be the case, and that communities will conclude sooner rather than later that “taking something with all kinds of hazardous materials in it and making it something kids play on” is indeed a dumb idea.

When communities finally realize something is dumb (like underground oil tanks), there is often a rush for the exits.

Let’s not be the last ones off the field.

 

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20 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

One thing you won't see on artificial turf: 

 

istockphoto-961203776-612x612.jpg

I also suspect that the incident of dog cr*p on your field goes down too with artificial turf.

Had a game one time on a grass field, where after the first play from scrimmage, we all get back in defensive huddle, and all of a sudden the smell just hits us all.  Everyone's checking their shoes and looking on the ground and all of a sudden one of the corners just jumps back out of the huddle and starts pointing at the right tackle's back.  Apparently on the play, he'd tackled the back and rolled in it and it was smeared all over his back.  Wasn't quite like the huddle scene in The Replacements, but there was a lot of gagging going on.

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14 minutes ago, foxbat said:

I also suspect that the incident of dog cr*p on your field goes down too with artificial turf.

Had a game one time on a grass field, where after the first play from scrimmage, we all get back in defensive huddle, and all of a sudden the smell just hits us all.  Everyone's checking their shoes and looking on the ground and all of a sudden one of the corners just jumps back out of the huddle and starts pointing at the right tackle's back.  Apparently on the play, he'd tackled the back and rolled in it and it was smeared all over his back.  Wasn't quite like the huddle scene in The Replacements, but there was a lot of gagging going on.

Seems legit. Once the dog chased the rabbit down the hole, he had nothing left to do but leave a big pile of poop.

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On 8/29/2022 at 12:56 PM, Impartial_Observer said:

Not to hijack the thread but if I remember correctly approximately 80% of the population are carriers of MRSA……and it should be pointed out that we’ll all probably die from something sooner or later. 

Possibly the Sun kills it? UV light

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On 8/27/2022 at 12:30 AM, Impartial_Observer said:

No clue, I know the turf comes with a prescribed maintenance/disinfecting routine. 

And if this routine is not performed to the letter any warranty on the artificial surface is null and void.

 

 

Edited by Muda69
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11 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

I guess we all know where you stand on mattress labels. 

I don't recall reading cleaning/maintenance instructions on my latest mattress label.  

Tag

The urban legend surrounding mattress labels is debunked by those four words "except by the consumer".

 

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27 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Apparently the next big thin.... err expense for high school football stadiums:  LED lighting where you can design fancy lighting patterns for touchdowns, turnovers, etc:

 

https://sportsvenuecalculator.com/knowledge/sports-field-lighting/led-sports-lighting-retrofit-cost/

 

image.png.19b76be8f6f9cfcf2ad4da2d25da8307.png

 

This has nothing to do with turf. Zero.  

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On 12/11/2019 at 8:15 AM, btownqbcoach said:

Last off-season myself and a few others on this board (and my gf) went sectional by sectional throughout the state and found who has turf/doesn't. I might have maybe a few wrong, but this list is pretty accurate. 

If you know of a school that is getting turf for 2020 or is voting on it soon, or has it in the works for 2021 please let me know. 

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8    
Crown Point Chesterton Carroll Carmel Avon BD LC Center Grove 32 Total
Lake Central Penn Homestead Westfield Brownsburg Tech WC CN 31 Turf
Merrillville Portage Noblesville HSE Pike Perry Meridian LN CE 1 Not Turf
Laf Jeff Valpo Warsaw Fishers Zionsville Southport North Central Franklin Cent    
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16    
LaPorte Concord FW BD Anderson Decatur Cent Franklin Bloom South BNL 34  
Michigan City Elk Central FW Snider Laf Harrison Plainfield New Pal Bloom North FC 24  
Mishawaka Elk Memorial FW Northrop Kokomo TH North Seymour Castle NA 8  
Munster Goshen FW NS McCutheon TH South Whiteland Ev North Jeff (2020) 2 No home field
SB Adams       Cathedral          
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24    
East Chicago Culver Angola Delta Connersville Beech Grove East Central Boonville 62  
Gary WS Kankakee Valley Columbia City FW SS Greenfield Central Frankfort Greenwood Jasper 34  
Griffith Logansport DeKalb FW Wayne Mt. Vernon Fortville   JC Eville Central 26  
Hammond Gavit New Prairie East Noble Huntington North Muncie Central Attucks Madison Eville Memorial 1 Haven't heard from
Hammond Morton Plymouth Leo Jay County New Castle Shortridge SC Eville Reitz 1  
Highland SB Clay Northridge Marion Pendleton Heights Lebanon Mooresville Eville Harrison    
Hobart SB Riley NorthWood Mississinewa Richmond Roncalli Martinsville Northview    
Lowell SB St Joe Wawasee New Haven Shelbyville Western SD      

 

25 26 27 28  
Hammond Lakeland FW Concordia Guerin 64
Hammond Clarke John Glenn Belmont Brebeuf 18
Hanover Central West Noble Oak Hill Crawfordsville 42
River Forest Mis Marion Peru Chatard  
Knox Garrett Northwestern North Montgomery 4
Calumet SB Wash Maconquah West Laf  
Benton Central Jimtown Norwell Hamilton Heights  
Twin Lakes Tipp Valley Heritage Yorktown  
29 30 31 32  
West Vigo Washington Brownstown Ev Bosse  
Ritter Princeton Scottsburg Gibson So  
Greencastle Sullivan Charlestown (2020) Mt. Vernon  
Danville Pike Central Lawrenceburg Heritage Hills  
Tri West Vinncennes Franklin Co Salem  
Manual Owen Valley Batesville Cordyon  
Indpls Wash Brown Co Greensburg North Harrison  
Indian Creek Edgewood Rushville Southridge  
33 34 35 36  
Andrean Bremen Bluffton Alexandria 64
Boone Grove Delphi Central Noble Blackford 12
Bowman LaVille Eastside Eastbrook 47
Hammon Bishop Noll Lewis Cass Fairfield Eastern (Greentown) 2
North Newton Manchester Luers Elwood 3
Ren Central Pioneer Whitko Frankton  
Wheeler Rochester Woodlan Lapel  
Whiting Wabash Prairie Heights Tipton  
37 38 39 40  
Cascade Centerville Clarksville Forest Park  
Monrovia Eastern Hancock Pekin North Posey  
North Putnam Heritage Christian Providence Eville Mater Dei  
Seegar Howe Paoli Crawford Co  
South Vermillion Scecina Mitchell Linton  
Southmont Northeastern Switzerland Co North Knox  
Speedway Shenandoah Triton Central Tell City  
Western Boone Winchester Union Co South Spencer  
41 42 43 44 64
Culver Community Carroll (Flora) Madison-Grant Adams Central 64
Gary Roosevelt Clinton Central Monroe Central Caston 5
Lake Station Edison Clinton Prairie South Adams Fremont 57
North Judson Frontier Southern Wells North Miami 2
West Central LCC Taylor Northfield 1
Winamac North White Tri-Central Southwood  
South Newton Traders Point Academy Union City Triton  
South Central (Union Mills) Tri-County Wes Del Churubusco  
45 46 47 48  
Attica Anderon Prep Cambridge City Eastern Greene  
Cloverdale Covenant Christian Hagerstown North Central (Farmersburg)  
Covington Edinburgh Knighstown North Daviess  
Fountain Central School of Deaf Milan Perry Central  
North Vermillion Lutheran North Decatur West Washington  
Parke Heritage Park Tudor South Decatur Rock Creek  
Riverton Parke Sheridan Tri Springs Valley  
South Putnam Tindley Oldenburg Tecumseh  

 

 

So only 1 class 6A and 8 class 5A schools do not have turf.   Interesting.   
to me the biggest positives outweigh any negatives.    You don’t have to worry about not practicing (football, baseball, band, soccer, the list doesn’t end) or having class on the field during school without tearing it up.  And one rainy game doesn’t ruin the field for the year for all age levels.   

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6 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Apparently the next big thin.... err expense for high school football stadiums:  LED lighting where you can design fancy lighting patterns for touchdowns, turnovers, etc:

 

https://sportsvenuecalculator.com/knowledge/sports-field-lighting/led-sports-lighting-retrofit-cost/

 

image.png.19b76be8f6f9cfcf2ad4da2d25da8307.png

 

Haven't been to Lebanon or Southmont yet, Muda?  They both have it.  It's obnoxious AF.

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25 minutes ago, 1st_and_10 said:

Haven't been to Lebanon or Southmont yet, Muda?  They both have it.  It's obnoxious AF.

No, I haven't.  I hear Frankfort has installed it, at a cost of $335,000: 

 

Edited by Muda69
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7 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Apparently the next big thin.... err expense for high school football stadiums:  LED lighting where you can design fancy lighting patterns for touchdowns, turnovers, etc:

 

https://sportsvenuecalculator.com/knowledge/sports-field-lighting/led-sports-lighting-retrofit-cost/

 

image.png.19b76be8f6f9cfcf2ad4da2d25da8307.png

 

Our field was the first in the area to get them, so we got them at half price. But, they are LED lights, and cost savings from use is huge compared to the old lights, We were even able to remove a pole from the setup on each side, and it uses fewer bulbs. 

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7 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Apparently the next big thin.... err expense for high school football stadiums:  LED lighting where you can design fancy lighting patterns for touchdowns, turnovers, etc:

 

https://sportsvenuecalculator.com/knowledge/sports-field-lighting/led-sports-lighting-retrofit-cost/

 

image.png.19b76be8f6f9cfcf2ad4da2d25da8307.png

 

The new stadium at Fort Wayne Carroll has it and it was awesome in my opinion.

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6 hours ago, AW0352 said:

So only 1 class 6A and 8 class 5A schools do not have turf.   Interesting.   
to me the biggest positives outweigh any negatives.    You don’t have to worry about not practicing (football, baseball, band, soccer, the list doesn’t end) or having class on the field during school without tearing it up.  And one rainy game doesn’t ruin the field for the year for all age levels.   

Nope, no 6As without turf anymore! .. and there are 6 5As left. Both Terre Hautes, Castle, FW Northside, Mishawaka, Concord. 

I can share the updated document with you, if you would like! 

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