Turf 2020 and Beyond

[Muda69]

16 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

You obviously don’t know much about the equine industry. 

I admit I don't.  Would goats, donkeys, llamas, or emus work better?

 

[Muda69]

14 hours ago, Irishman said:

 

Maintenance for grass can run between $30,000 to do as little as possible to $60,000 to put time and effort into a nice field.

 

Or you could contact the local Forrest Gump and get it done for free.

 

13 hours ago, btownqbcoach1 said:

I'm failing to see the advantages of grass, other than... yeah, not spending any money. 

Tradition.

Grass stains on uniforms.

Mud.

Builds character.

 

[foxbat]

17 hours ago, gonzoron said:

That way you can let your horse graze after you ride it to the game.

Did an e-commerce consulting job for an oil field supply company down in Texas once.  One of the items that could be bought out of their catalog, in addition to everything you'd expect on a land drilling site, were goats.  Apparently they used them to keep the grass levels low around the building and outside material holding areas.  Apparently they were great at getting at the grass between pipes that were laid on the ground among other things.

[Impartial_Observer]

31 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

I admit I don't.  Would goats, donkeys, llamas, or emus work better?

 

In your upside down world of grazing livestock on Football fields, I would probably advocate for goats, based purely from a fecal standpoint. Horse would destroy an area as small as a football field in pretty short order. But that’s ultimately your goal isn’t it?

32 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Or you could contact the local Forrest Gump and get it done for free.

 

Tradition.

Grass stains on uniforms.

Mud.

Builds character.

 

Sure because ever backwoods school has a gazillionaire with a Snapper. 

[btownqbcoach1]

43 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Or you could contact the local Forrest Gump and get it done for free.

 

Tradition.

Grass stains on uniforms.

Mud.

Builds character.

 

Tradition? A tradition of what? 

Grass stains on uniforms do absolutely nothing for me. Overrated. 

Mud sucks. I won a regional in the muddiest field you've ever seen, ask the Southridge people about it. Again, overrated. 

Build character? How on earth could it build character? 

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My takeaways from playing 99% of my football games on grass were.... 

1. I had to wear ankle braces in every athletic "event, practice, pickup game" after playing on grass... because our practice field and game field were so poor my ankles were absolutely ruined from planting, cutting, and dropping back to pass on it for 4 years...

2. I hated it when it was wet, the ball was slick as hell because there would be a muddy film on the ball, along with the rain. Sucked, and essentially impossible to throw the ball. 

3. Morning practices sucked. 

[Muda69]

36 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

In your upside down world of grazing livestock on Football fields, I would probably advocate for goats, based purely from a fecal standpoint. Horse would destroy an area as small as a football field in pretty short order. But that’s ultimately your goal isn’t it?

Yeah, if you factor in the goal of government schools getting out of the extracurricular athletics business entirely,  yes. In the short team, no.  I like grass fields better than fake fields.

38 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Sure because ever backwoods school has a gazillionaire with a Snapper. 

There are more out there than you think. Or you could have 2-3 micro-gazillionaires share the job for free.

 

 

[Muda69]

19 minutes ago, btownqbcoach1 said:

Tradition? A tradition of what? 

Grass stains on uniforms do absolutely nothing for me. Overrated. 

Mud sucks. I won a regional in the muddiest field you've ever seen, ask the Southridge people about it. Again, overrated. 

Build character? How on earth could it build character? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My takeaways from playing 99% of my football games on grass were.... 

1. I had to wear ankle braces in every athletic "event, practice, pickup game" after playing on grass... because our practice field and game field were so poor my ankles were absolutely ruined from planting, cutting, and dropping back to pass on it for 4 years...

2. I hated it when it was wet, the ball was slick as hell because there would be a muddy film on the ball, along with the rain. Sucked, and essentially impossible to throw the ball. 

3. Morning practices sucked. 

Your weak ankles were not the fault of grass fields.  Nice try.

Why yes, because factors like field conditions and weather should be mitigated as much as possible. Everything should be the same.   Every game, ever time.   Because winning is everything.  So sayeth the adults who run the game played by children.

 

 

[Impartial_Observer]

27 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Yeah, if you factor in the goal of government schools getting out of the extracurricular athletics business entirely,  yes. In the short team, no.  I like grass fields better than fake fields.

There are more out there than you think. Or you could have 2-3 micro-gazillionaires share the job for free.

 

 

So I assume you’re volunteering your time, Snapper, and gas at Frankfort?

[gonzoron]

3 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

So I assume you’re volunteering your time, Snapper, and gas at Frankfort?

Sounds like a good project for Boy Scouts. It would get them their first look at a football field.

[Muda69]

5 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

So I assume you’re volunteering your time, Snapper, and gas at Frankfort?

No, I'm not a gazillionaire.  You however IO, are another story.

 

[Impartial_Observer]

Just now, Muda69 said:

No, I'm not a gazillionaire.  You however IO, are another story.

 

 I’ve donated more time/money than I care to remember for local school/youth sports, nice try Muda. 

[Impartial_Observer]

16 hours ago, Irishman said:

Just spent some time talking to our director of facilities. here are some numbers 

Initial installation of the turf was $800,000. That included removal of 12 inches of dirt, installation of the drainage system, the materials that go under the turf for an even surface, and then the turf itself. The life of the turf is about 10 years. To replace just the turf will be $200,000

Maintenance of the turf includes 

Grooming once a week to remove trash and even out the rubber pellets. That takes 2 hours, and is done 27 times a year from the beginning of Spring Soccer in Mid April through the end of November. Man hours on that come out to about $2500 

The contract with the installer includes an inspection once a year for $1200. That inspection includes looking at the seams, and a G Max test, to test the impact the field can absorb. There is a sstandard for determining if the field can still be used for football with that test. 

So a rough estimate is about $5,000 a year to maintain the field. 

 

Now for grass

Painting the field for 6 home games average including playoffs

4 hours for the boundary lines and the full lines every 5 yards

Depending on the number of people working, the numbers and hash marks can take another 4-6 hours; longer for fewer people. For 6 games a year to pay for man hours alone, that comes to about $10,000 for a season in labor and paint. The paint cost will vary. A 5 gallon bucket is about $60. He was not sure how many buckets were used per game. 

Grass was cut once a week, so about $2,400 for that in man hours.

The field was watered from early Spring through the end of the season. he did not have the numbers for what watering cost. With the amount of water used, that is more than likely the biggest expense. The only comparison I have is that to put 15,000 gallons of water in my pool was $200 here in Fort Wayne. I hav no idea how many gallons were used a day on the field. 

Fertilizer for the grass was $1,200. 

Seeding the field, and overseeding done in late Fall, and aerating the field was $500. 

 

What is not accounted for in most high schools

Maintenance for grass can run between $30,000 to do as little as possible to $60,000 to put time and effort into a nice field. A friend from outside of Indy that used to coach said that $60,000 was the annual cost their AD presented to the board before a decision was made for installing turf. 

It is also recommended that grass fields be resurfaced every 10 years to add new topsoil, recrown the field for proper drainage. 

Usage

Prior to turf being a big thing, most fields in Indiana were low end as far as care went. Even on good fields, usage was drastically limited. Even a varsity team was limited to how much they could practice on the grass. We had PAL games on Saturdays on ours, JV games on Mondays, Middle School games on Wednesdays, and Freshmen games on Thursdays. We did not share our field with soccer, but several did. 

The band could not use the grass field for practice because of the wear and tear of marching, and wheeling the props on and off. 

Physical Education classes could not use the field.

Have I mentioned what happens to a field when it rains? Especially what happens to it on a game day? Once the cooler weather sets in, most grass fields deteriorate rapidly. 

 

In the long run, over a 10 year period, a grass field easily costs more to maintain than it does to install and maintain a turf field. The usage increased about 300% on our field as a result of turf installation. In my 16 years here, I have seen far more serious injuries on our crappy grass field than I have on our turf. 

I will ignore any study that does not involve at least 100 grass fields...and I want to know for certain that it includes grass fields that are poorly maintained. 

College and pro teams certainly have the resources to maintain quality grass fields, and I have no problem with those athletes and experts wanting to switch. But for multi purpose fields, which every high school field in this state is, I will still contend the safer and more cost effective thing is turf.  

 

Good stuff @Irishman you know I myself as well as many others used to make intelligent, well thought out, cohesive posts like this, only to get replies such as “just let horses graze on it”. And handful of idiots have ran off more people from this forum that I care to remember. Seems it’s sadly a microcosm of our society. 

[Irishman]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Or you could contact the local Forrest Gump and get it done for free.

He only cut the grass.

He did not water it

He did not line it or buy the paint for lining it

He did not fertilize it

He did not reseed and overseed it. 
He did not aerate it

He never resurfaced the sod. 
So having him cut the grass saves you $2400 a year. 

[Muda69]

17 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

 I’ve donated more time/money than I care to remember for local school/youth sports, nice try Muda. 

Good for you.

 

2 minutes ago, Irishman said:

He only cut the grass.

He did not water it

He did not line it or buy the paint for lining it

He did not fertilize it

He did not reseed and overseed it. 
He did not aerate it

He never resurfaced the sod. 
So having him cut the grass saves you $2400 a year. 

$2400 is a lot of money.  You could buy a decent amount of high school textbooks for $2400.

[Irishman]

7 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Good for you.

 

$2400 is a lot of money.  You could buy a decent amount of high school textbooks for $2400.

Except they are separate funds so that cannot be done

[Impartial_Observer]

1 minute ago, Irishman said:

Except they are separate funds so that cannot be done

Forget it, he’s rolling. 

9 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Good for you.

 

$2400 is a lot of money.  You could buy a decent amount of high school textbooks for $2400.

What like 7-8 books?

[btownqbcoach1]

59 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Your weak ankles were not the fault of grass fields.  Nice try.

Why yes, because factors like field conditions and weather should be mitigated as much as possible. Everything should be the same.   Every game, ever time.   Because winning is everything.  So sayeth the adults who run the game played by children.

 

 

L O L.... yes my ankles were 100% our grass field's fault. Wild for you to try and tell ME what the issue was with MY ankles. 

 

14 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Good stuff @Irishman you know I myself as well as many others used to make intelligent, well thought out, cohesive posts like this, only to get replies such as “just let horses graze on it”. And handful of idiots have ran off more people from this forum that I care to remember. Seems it’s sadly a microcosm of our society. 

It sucks. We could have a lot of fun talking about sports. 

3 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Forget it, he’s rolling. 

What like 7-8 books?

Who still uses textbooks? lol 

[Ballhawk]

I apologize if I took this in the wrong direction.  I have long extolled the addition of turf for high school stadiums due to the amount of use that can be added to the field surface without causing damage or expensive upkeep.  I was only curious as to whether the stated 'cost savings' were accurate.  I knew someone here would be able to answer that, so thank you.

I would like nothing more than to see Bud Wright Stadium with field turf.  I hope I see that come to fruition one day.

[Muda69]

I give up.  With all the dogpiling I rescind what I have ever said about artificial turf.   I was wrong and you all are right. 

It is the best thing to ever happen to Indiana High School football.  In fact I will contact my duly elected representative in the Indiana legislature and propose to him that taxpayer funds be used to replace all the existing government high school natural grass football fields with artificial turf, and all government schools that have already done this be reimbursed for the initial installation expense.  All Indiana high school athletes should never have to suffer through the indignity of a muddy football uniform or the uncertainty of a wet, slippery football that has fallen onto a wet grass field.

We also need to petition the IHSAA to not allow tournament games on grass fields. That should give all those p/p schools out there more motivation to replace their cow pastures with pristine, perfect artificial surfaces.  

And keep those pictures of new artificial fields coming!  I will endeavor to upvote them all from now on. 

ARTIFICIAL TURF FOR LIFE! ARTIFICIAL TURF FOREVER!

[Irishman]

9 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

I give up. I was wrong and you all are right. 

 

Mr Speaker, I would like to document and memorialize the time snd date for this significant event 

[Impartial_Observer]

So now we can resume the thread?

[ragdoll]

Southridge did have an extremely mud bath of a field back in the day during cold, wet weather.

[FastpacedO]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

We also need to petition the IHSAA to not allow tournament games on grass fields. That should give all those p/p schools out there more motivation to replace their cow pastures with pristine, perfect artificial surfaces.  

Not to worry the IHSAA has already slightly been frowning upon grass fields for Tournament play.

[btownqbcoach1]

2 minutes ago, FastpacedO said:

Not to worry the IHSAA has already slightly been frowning upon grass fields for Tournament play.

as they should... I'm in favor of neutral site games after the sectional at pre-determined locations.. and obviously with turf. 

[btownqbcoach1]

9 minutes ago, ragdoll said:

Southridge did have an extremely mud bath of a field back in the day during cold, wet weather.

I washed the mud out of my eyelids every other play. lol ...it was wild