Does your football field take a beating...

Of course turf fields are made to take a beating and keep on ticking, but how much is your grass field getting used?

 

I've seen some high school football fields that are the outfield for the baseball team, some grass fields are shared with soccer, some have youth football played on them on the weekends and some have daily marching band practice held on them.

 

So how much does your field get beat up each week?

School: Somerset

Field: Grass

Soccer No...they have their own field

Band Practice No

Youth League No

Football Practice No(except on light days)

Middle School Football games Yes but have their own practice field

Cooper's does, but that is only because we water it down every Thursday night before game day :thumb:

Cooper's does, but that is only because we water it down every Thursday night before game day :thumb:

 

Funny for sure, but on a serious note, Cooper's field gets destroyed early. Freshman, JV, and Varsity Football, along with Freshman, JV, and Varsity Boys and Girls Soccer, plus I think the band is on the field once a week if I am not mistaken. Ridiculous how much action that field gets, and top that off with the terrible drainage system that is on that field when they installed it and it makes for a bad playing surface!

Fleming County has 1 field for everything. Varsity football, jv and freshman football, middle school football, little league football and boys and girls soccer.

I walked across the Somereset field a few weeks ago after the BW game. If I had my clubs with me I would have putted out. It was that nice.

Ashland field is used quite a bit. I don't believe the youth leagues play there anymore. But the three high school teams do, as well as middle school. Soccer, baseball, and softball have their own facilities, though the football team uses the baseball facility as a practice field, which i understand will be converted to turf in the near future.

 

The grounds crew at Putnam does an excellent job though. It is an irrigated field and manicured multiple times a week. It is Bermuda though, so once the season changes it turned dormant and little can be done to preserve it. There are talks that it will be converted to turf during the next phase of renovations at Putnam, but there are mixed feelings about that and I'm not sure it will happen anytime soon.

I walked across the Somereset field a few weeks ago after the BW game. If I had my clubs with me I would have putted out. It was that nice.

It was a mess a few years ago. Back when the dad's got together to stripe the field each week I got plenty of time walking every inch of the field and there were some areas that were in pretty rough shape.

 

But after a game at Glasgow one of the assistant coaches that at the time was the primary care giver to the field, talked to someone over there about how great their field was and got some tips I was told. Since then the field has gotten better and better the last few seasons.

 

Of course little to no practice on it, no soccer, no band practice and plenty of water, sand and great drainage really helps.

Bell County's used to but they installed turf. A major help this season.

At the school I was at, it is turf & has already gone thru 1 turf field due to the use & abuse of all the teams.

 

F/JV/V football, JV,V boys & girls soccer, Middle School Football, any and every soccer & football clinic you can squeeze onto the schedule, the band, Track & Field events, Special Olympics, and independent soccer & football teams that would apply to use the field even if there was a foot of snow on it (no joke, I stood out there & watched them more than once shovel snow off the turf to get a practice in for some independent soccer or football team.) Baseball & Softball would use it in the spring until their own respective fields were fit to be used after they thawed out & were playable. We would also have enough tresspassing people that would hop the fence & trash the field that I requested taller fences to be put up only to be laughed at by administration.

 

The surface which should have lasted 15-20 years was done way before 10 years of use to the point that the turf didn't even resemble grass blades anymore & was more of green fuzz. When it would rain, it looked like puddles of algae were floating away, but it was actually the turf.:ohbrother:

 

The new surface is one of the best that I have seen, installed by the same company that did the turf in Commonwealth Stadium, but is still taking the same beating that it did before so only time will tell how good it holds up, I'm not there anymore so its not any of my worry :wave:

Just to clear thigs up with turf fields. The Turf fields were never meant to last 10-15 years. The usual cycle is usually between 7-10 years I believe. The schools that have the mindset of once they get turf fields they never have to worry about replacing it are dead wrong. I've seen some turf fields that have been neglected when they needed to be replaced actually be worse than grass fields to play on. The worn down turf fields become a skating rink and are pulled hamstrings waiting to happen each play.