stared at the infield dirt for nearly tenminutes. "The turf didn't bother me," hepoints out. "It was the dirt and all the fieldpreparation that had me worried. For-tunately, I had a good older crew with lots ofideas they had been holding inside foryears. We agreed that I would listen to themif they worked with me as a team. I knewthen,and I am still convinced, that the peo-ple around you are your greatest resource:'

Then Gill got on the phone to the majorturf suppliers and sod growers in the area.He also called Dick Ericson with the Min-nesota Twins 'and George Toma with theKansas. City Royals. "I picked brains 'asmuch as I could," Gill admits. "Not allstadium qroundskeepsrs were: willing toshare their knowledge of baseball fieldmanagement. That, bothered me:'

Time has.eased the pressure of that firstseason, b,ut Gill's description of his firsteight months' as a major league ground-skeeper is enough to send chills up thespine of anyone starting out. The All Stargame was July 12. In May, a Seals andCrofts concert wiped out 5,000 square yardsof turf. Gill managed to locate enoughMerion sod to repair the damage before thenext home stand.

On June 8, the stadium hosted a RollingStones concert, followed two weeks later bya Pink Floyd concert. "I don't know why any-one puts chairs out on a field," Gill com-ments. "The 12,000 kidson the field for theconcerts never sat down. They just stood,danced, and jumped up and down." Theresult was another 5,000 square yards ofdestroyed turf on the field, with less thanthree weeks to go before the All Star game.

This time, sod growers were fighting dis-eases on their Merion fields and couldn'thelp Gill. All they had was common Ken-tucky bluegrass.

"I couldn't have an infielo that was halfMerion and half common," Gill recalls withalarm'. 'TheWhite Sox were corninq in eightdays, followed a day later by the All Star

game. On a Thursday we removed thedamaged sod from the infield. That's whenwe noticed that there was a bubble of dirtfour inches high, extending from thebasepaths into the infield turf from first tothird. The rock fans on the field had kickeddirt into the diamond turf and ruined thegrade."

Between the two concerts, four playerprotests had been filed with the leagueabout the field. Both the Brewers and the

American League initiated law suits againstthe county which operates the stadium.With league officials looking over his shoul-der, Gill proceeded to solve the problem.

Gill's plan was to take healthy Merion sodfrom outside the foul lines (hips) and use itto fix the infield. Then he would sod the hipswith the common. The crew started byremoving the infield dirt and the bubblebetween first and second. "We hit t~~ origi-

continued 'on page 22

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Man of the Yearcontinued from page 21

nal stakes three to four inches below thesurface," Gill recalls.

The clay mix was stockpiled while thecrew cut the remaining healthy Merion fromoutside the foul lines. N3 the grade wasrestored between first and second, the crewbegan laying the Merion cut from the field.The process was then repeated betweensecond and th ird.

The final step was to install the commonKentucky bluegrass sod outside the foullines. "Each load of sod was a differentcolor, from dark green to yellow," Gilllaughs. "We ended up with a checkerboardpattern that was impossible to miss:'

He called in the county painters on Wed-nesday, two days before the series with theWhite Sox. "I gave the painters one radioand took another radio to the upper deck ofthe stadium," he remembers. From his van-tage point in the stands, Gill instructed thepainters on the field where to spray greendye for a uniform appearance.

On Thursday, Brewers owner Bud Seligand two lawyers met Gill on the field. Thequestion was simple and directed to thenew groundskeeper: "Will the field be readyfor the All Star game?" With the confidenceof a person with 30 years' experience inturf, Gill replied that the field would beready.

On Friday morning, a large headline onthe sports page of the Milwaukee Sentinelread, "Groundskeeper Says Field Not SoBad." That night the series with the WhiteSox started without a hitch.

After the last Sox game on Sunday, Gillbrought the painters back in to touch up thecommon bluegrass. The following morninghundreds of press and players poured ontothe field for the traditional interviews. Mean-while, Gill carefully outlined his strategy tothe crew and painters.

As soon as the reporters, photographersand players left the field, the crew ran out toperform their assigned tasks according toGill's schedule. He has become known fortiming all field duties with a stopwatch, apractice which came in handy that night.

As the field was being mowed, Gill madeseveral trips into the stands to check thepattern. When he was satisfied, the paintersrefreshed the white lines on the turf. Mean-while, other crew members worked like aprecision drill team on the mound, batter'sbox, bull pens, and basepaths. Each dirtarea was wet down and covered upon com-pletion.

At four o'clock the following morning, thepainters returned to dye the entire fieldgreen one final time. As the crew wastouching up the dirt and chalking the lines,Selig walked out onto the field accompa-nied by two giants in baseball, Commis-sioner Bowie Kuhn and American LeaguePresident Lee McPhail. Upon looking at thefield and a brief conversation with Gill, theydropped all lawsuits.

Four weeks after the event, Gill waspresented with an All Star ring for his dedi-22 Golf & Sports TURF

"Groundskeepersused tricks to give

their team theadvantage. Gill

thought everyoneshould know whatthose tricks are."

cation and achievement. By then he hadalready survived another potential disaster.On August 8, the Green Bay Packers playedan exhibition game at Milwaukee CountyStadium in the rain. If that wasn't hardenough on the turf and dirt, 1,800 Shrinersmarched on the field during halftime. Hav-ing resodded twice that season, and withtwo months of baseball and four morePacker games, Gill was determined torepair the turf he had.

Gill knew from his work on golf coursesand also from talking with Ericson, thatperennial ryegrass could be overseededinto thin areas to bring them back to lifequickly. He also recognized that core aera-tion provided holes to protect the seed whileit germinated, relieved compaction, andproduced topdressing. Before the firstregular-season Packer game the stadiumfield was green, dense and soft.

That winter Gill made two trips whichstrengthened his belief that sports turfmanagers had to share their experiences.The first was to Fenway Park in Boston,where groundskeeper Joe Mooney hadearned a good reputation with players. Thesecond was to Purdue University in WastLafayette, IN, site of the Midwest Turf Con-ference. There, Dr. William Daniel sharedhis experiments with sand-based rootzonesfor golf greens and athletic fields with Gill.It was also where he met John Souter, abuilder of sports fields from Scotland.

Gill asked Daniel if the university wouldprovide a meeting room during the nextMidwest Turf Conference to hold separatesessions on sports field care. Daniel suq-gested that Gill enlist the support of ErikMadisen, executive director of the NationalInstitute on Park and Grounds Manage-ment. Madisen, who had begun to offersports turf management seminars,promised to help.

When Gill returned to Milwaukee, hecalled Ericson, Toma, Barney Barron a.tCandlestick Park, Dale Sandin at theOrange Bowl, Roger Bossard at ComiskeyPark, and Pat Santarone at Baltimore'sMemorial Stadium for their ideas. They allagreed that it was time to remove the veil ofsecrecy hanging over athletic field main-tenance. There were thousands of groundsmanagers at parks, schools, and universi-ties who needed to know the elements ofmaintaining high-use athletic turf. Thesepeople may not have the budgets or staff of

a stadium, but they could still adapt stadiummethods to help their institutions.

They all knew that time was somethinqstadium groundskeepers had little of. Theycould barely handle the growing number ofrequests for help from schools and parks. Away to provide information on field con-struction and maintenance to those whoneeded it had to be developed.

Stadium groundskeepers also needed away to prove that they were doing all theycould for their teams. "If your team won onthe road and lost at home, the players andcoaches put a lot of heat on you," recallsEricson. "There were no standards to follow,just vague guidelines. Groundskeepersused tricks to give their team the advan-tage. Harry thought everyone should knowwhat those tricks are to make the game fairfor the groundskeeper as well as his team.

"Harry was different," adds Ericson. "Helet out all his secrets. He was always tryingto improve things, not just for himself, butanybody who was interested enough to ask.He learned and he shared, so today he isone of the best groundskeepers in profes-sional sports, especially when you considerhe has an outdoor multipurpose stadium:'

Before Christmas 1980, Gill wrote a notein each card he sent to his long list ofgroundskeeper friends: "What do you thinkabout starting an association for managersof sports fields?" The response was over-whelmingly in favor. He invited everyone toattend the meeting at the Midwest Turf Con-ference that coming March to work out thedetails.

"When I walked into the room that DocDaniel set up for us at Purdue, 150 seatswere set up," Gill remembers. "I thought, noway are we going to fill this room. But wedid. I think it surprised a lot of people. Mostof those who came were school and parkgroundskeepers worried about keepingtheir fields in shape with increasing use.They needed answers right then and thereto help them get through the coming year:'

!~

Milwaukee County Stadium.

Gill may have been the firststadium groundskeeper to usea helicopter to dry a field to

prevent a rainout.

That night in Gill's hotel room in the student union, seven peo-ple gathered to work out the details of starting an association.Among them were Toma, Daniel, Ericson, Madisen, Purduegroundskeeper Steve Weisenberger, Wisconsin landscape con-tractor Roy Zehren, and Mike Schiller, park superintendent fromNorthbrook, IL. The Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA)was officially formed that evening with Ericson as president,Daniel as vice president, Weisenberger as treasurer, Gill andToma as board members, and Madisen as the executive director.

For two years, STMA provided educational sessions at both thePurdue and the NIPGM conferences. Other stadium ground-skeepers joined the cause to help the association keep up withthe demand for field information. Steve Wightman from DenverMile High Stadium, David Frey from Cleveland MunicipalStadium, Tony Burnett from RFK Stadium in Washington, DC, andSam Newpher from the Atlanta Braves pitched in to take some ofthe load off of Gill.

Many state extension services started to include sports turfmanagement in their turf programs, including Ohio, Mas-sachusetts, Nebraska, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vir-ginia, Maryland, and California. The most successful of these wasthe Sports Turf Institute at California Polytechnic Institute inPomona. Professor Dr. Kent Kurtz, groundskeeper Mark Hodnick,and the department of horticulture organized the conference andexhibit, attended each March by more than 300 area turfmanagers.

Kurtz, an Illinois native, shared Gill's vision of what STMA couldbe. He started helping Gill and the rest of the STMA board onevenings and weekends from his home in Ontario, CA. In 1984,the board voted to make Kurtz executive director and turn it intoan independent association. Within five years the membershipincreased from 60 to 800, before Kurtz had to resign for healthreasons in 1989.

continued on page 24

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Man of the Yearcontinued from page 23

Gill's part in the creation of STMA toooften overshadows his other accomplish-ments. From his first job at West Bend Alu-minum Company in 1944, he has alwayssought extra responsibility and showed aknack as a problem solver. His willingnessto try new things took him from the produc-tion line outside to the landscape of the cor-poration, and then to its golf course (WestBend Country Club) as superintendent. '

"I used to polish aluminum kettles in thefactory during the winter and then planttrees, turf, and flowers around it during thesummer," reflects Gill. "I loved being out-side and getting involved with all sorts ofthings from landscaping to blacktoppingroads. One day I was called to theboardroom by Bernie Ziegler, chairman ofthe company. The board was meeting andI thought they might be having a problemwith lights or a projector.

"I walked into this fancy paneled roomwith a big mahogany table surrounded byall the bigwigs. To my surprise, they wantedto talk to me! The professional at the coun-try club had quit and they fired the superin-tendent. They wanted me to take over. All Iknew about taking care of a golf course waswhat my son, the caddymaster there, hadtold me:'

The first thing Gill did was call in all thearea equipment distributors to suggestwhat he needed and give him a bid. "BobReinders (Reinders Turf Equipment Co.)was just starting out," Gill laughs. "His bid

.was lowest but he didn't have a place to putthe equipment toqether, Jacobsen sent all.the equipment to the course in boxes andwe had to put it together ourselves:'

Gill immediately sought advice fromother Milwaukee superintendents. He readevery book on golf course management he

:~couldfind, and then put together a list of 30questions. He asked the same list of ques-tions of every superintendent he couldreach within 40 miles. From their answers~he obtained important information about-cuttinq heights, fertilization, weed controland irrigation. He also shared the results-,,Witheveryone who had helped him.

Two superintendents were especiallyhelpful to Gill: Frank Moosebach at Blue

.,Mound Country Club and Lester Ver Haalan,at Brentwood Country Club. In October1963, the three superintendents organized

.a two-day seminar in Milwaukee in conjunc-tion with the Wisconsin Golf CourseSuperintendents Association. Both days

.were devoted to one subject. Every Octobersince, WGCSA and Milorganite have spon-sored the two-day seminar.

Gill may have been the first stadiumgroundskeeper tousea helicopter to dry afield to prevent a rainout. "A cancellationcan cost a stadium hundreds of thousandsof dollars," he points out. "Some peoplemightoot think It's too smart to spend $150per hour for a helicopter to hover over thefield, but twice it has saved a cancellationat Milwau-~e~:'·." ,<

24 Golf & SpartsJURF

Gill has becomeclose friends withcelebrities of all

types, from playersand managers tomovie stars and

announcers.

Ericson at the Metrodome in Minneapolisthinks the efforts of Gill to increase commu-nication among groundskeepers led tomore specific standards for field main-tenance. "The old rules said the mound hadto be about 15 inches higher than homeplate," says Ericson. "Without rules, thepitching rubber would be anywhere from 10to 18 inches high, depending on where youplayed. Sometimes the catcher couldn'teven see second base.

"The rules also didn't say anything aboutthe slope of the mound. If you had a powerpitcher, the groundskeeper could build themound up to provide a steeper slope infront. If the pitcher was sidearm, you'd lowerthe mound to ten inches and decrease theslope. Today, the league requires that themound is ten inches high with a slope ofone inch per foot. This helps the ground-skeeper by eliminating last-minute changesto fit certain players:'

I Gill is a teacher as well as a manager. Hiswillingness to snare is greatest with thosejust starting out. He can detect if someoneis dedicated to being a good ground-skeeper. "If someone really wants to learn,I tell them to come to the stadium to watchthe guys work," he says. "But I also expectthem to be here at eight [a.m.] sharp, not aminute later:'

He takes pride in the fact he helped moldstudents into groundskeepers in their ownright. "I didn't have an assistant the firstyear, but then I hired a graduate of theUniversity of Wisconsin named Rod Adel.He had a master's degree in soils. Hetaught me about soils and I taught himabout groundskeeping during the threeyears he was here:'

Gary Vandenberg joined Gill in 1979 andis his assistant today. "Gary was a superin-tendent on a golf course in town," Gillrecalls. "Other candidates were better quali-fied, but I had a good feeling about Gary.I'm positive I made the right choice 11yearsago:'

Paul Zwauska, a former member of Gill'screw and a graduate of the University ofWisconsin, is now Pat Santarone's assistantin Baltimore. Gill also helped Steve Wight-man perfect his baseball preparation whenhe was at Mile High Stadium. Wightman is

now turf manager at San Diego/Jack Mur-phy Stadium in San Diego, CA.

"A few years ago, Dr. John Street at OhioState University called me up and said hehad a turf student that wanted to be astadium groundskeeper. I didn't have anyopenings at the time, but I told him to sendthe student up to work that summer," saysGill. His name is David Mellor and he is nowVandenberg's assistant at the stadium.

During his career, Gill has managed thestadium through many special events.Beside rock concerts and dirt events, hehas directed the care of the field and thestadium through a World Series and thefilming of motion pictures ("Major League"to name just one). In the process he hasbecome close friends with celebrities of alltypes, from players and managers to moviestars and announcers. "They all like to visitmy office under the stadium to get away andshoot the bull," he reveals.

Another of Gill's big challenges involvedCompadre Stadium, the Brewers' newspring training facility in Chandler, AZ. II'December 1984, General Manager HarryDalton approached Gill and said, "Can youget away for a few days?" Dalton wanted Gillto look over different parcels of land inChandler for the complex. A site wasselected and plans were reviewed that sum-mer by Gill.

Chandler presented the Brewers with atough challenge. A city ordinance restrictedthe height of any building to one story. Tomeet this requirement, the field had to bebuilt 40 feet below grade.

Just before Thanksgiving, Dalton cameto Gill with a problem. The job wasn't onschedule and he wanted Gill to fly to Chan-dler and check things out. He was alarmedthat the project was eight weeks behind.With only three months to go before theopening of spring training, Gill was giventhe assignment of making sure the complexwould be completed on time.

Faced with the near impossible, Gillremained in Chandler that fall and winter,finishing the job on schedule. To make mat-ters tougher, the week before opening a firebroke out in the clubhouse. The complex isa finalist in the 1989 Baseball Diamond ofthe Year Award.

This month Gill returned to Chandler withan easier assignment: to give the crew atCompadre Stadium a little advice and takeit easy before the season opens in Milwau-kee in April. "I've got good crews in bothlocations," he boasts. "They know I'll backthem up on new ideas that can improve ourfields:'

When he retires this fall, Gill will still bethere to share ideas with the Brewersmanagement and crew. Maybe he'll havemore time to help sports turf managers atother facilities solve problems, advise stu-dents on entering the field, and helpadvance the quality of natural turf outdoorstadiums. These have been his goals fromthe first day he stood on the mound at Mil-waukee County Stadium. They will continueto be his goals into retirement. (2',.

OHIO STATE BEGINSCONVERSION TO GRASS

The artificial turf and pad at OhioStadium were rolled up in November asOhio State University began to convert itsfield to a Prescription Athletic Turf (PAT)sys-tem. This May, thousands of Ohio State stu-dents will walk across Kentucky bluegrassto receive their diplomas during graduationceremonies at the stadium.

Turf Services, Inc., of Spring take, Ml, willinstall the new sand-based field. The com-pany was the contractor for the PAt systemsat the University of Iowa's Kinnick Stadiumand Soldier Field in Chicago. The Buckeyeswill be the third Big Ten Conference team toconvert to natural turf. The recent additionof Pennsylvania State University to the BigTen brings the total of natural turf fields inthe conference to four.

Ohio State is constructing three newfields on campus to handle many of theintramural sports previously played at OhioStadium. The decision to return the stadiumto natural turf hinged on finding other fieldsfor the university's busy athleticdepartment.

The Ohio Turfgrass Foundation, whichhas been a major proponent of convertingthe stadium to natural turf, will donate thesod for the stadium field. The schooldecided not to include a field heatingsystem.

PENNSYLVANIA COUNCILFUNDS TURF SURVEY

The Pennsylvania Turfgrass Council(PTC) has donated money to the Pennsylva-nia Crop Reporting Service for a: turfgrasssurvey of the state. The report, which is dueout by this summer, will be the first surveyof turfgrass facilities in the state since 1966.

The Council is encouraging everyonewho receives a questionnaire to fill it outpromptly and accurately. PTC hopes thisdata will be helpful in obtaining new serv-ices for the turfgrass industry in the state.

"Our industry has grown and diversifiedsubstantially since 1966," stated outgoingPTC President Joseph Baidy. "Many ques-tions have been asked concerning the sizeof the turfgrass industry in Pennsylvania,and for the past 15 years we have beenseverely limited as to how we can respond.The Council feels very strongly that by fund-ing most of this survey we can provide animportant and necessary service to theindustry:'

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Ed Shoemaker has been promoted to thepostion of vice president/general manager.He will oversee the sales, marketing,engineering, and manufacturing operationfor the Golf Division. Shoemaker bringsmore than 30 years of irrigation and busi-ness experience to his new post.

The company's home office in Glendora,CA, has brought Steve Christie on board asits new director of sales and marketing.Christie will draw on his 15 years '6f golfcourse and turf irrigation experience todirect the efforts of Rain Bird's newlyexpanded field sales and service staff.

The Golf Division has also establishedsix new field sales and service positions.Rod McWhirter has been appointed nation-al golf specification manager and hasbegun working directly with golf coursearchitects, designers, and irrigation consul-tants acrosss the United States. Rain Birdhas also added Alan Clark, Shawn Con-nors, Dave Ferron, and Jim Schumacher asgolf sales managers, with sales responsibil-ities in the Northeast, Southwest, North-west/Rocky Mountains, and Southeastregions, respectively.

The Golf Division has also created a golfservice manager postion to provide servicesupport in the Northeast/Atlantic Seaboardarea.

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Super Bowl XXIV:NFL Comes Home to New Orleans

When National Football LeagueCommissioner Pete Rozelle retiredlast year and handed the reins to

Paul Tagliabue, he also transferred themanagement of one of the greatest sportingevents in the world, the Super Bowl. For 23years, Rozelle was as much a sportsproducer as he was a management repre-sentative for 28 professional football teams.

Super Bowl XXIV on January 28 in NewOrleans will be the first without Rozelle atthe helm. However, new CommissionerTagliabue must be relieved to know thatNew Orleans has served the NFL admirablyin six previous Super Bowls. Only Miamiand Los Angeles can match New Orleans'record for staging the world championshipof football.

To the NFL turf team of George and ChipToma and their crew from Kansas City, NewOrleans is "like coming home." "Onceyou've been through a couple Super Bowlstogether, you know what to expect and howto handle just about anything thrown atyou," states George Toma. "That's the wayit will be in New Orleans."

What you see on television screens onSuper Bowl Sunday is only part of the turfteam's job. You won't see the fields atTulane University and the Saints PracticeFacility where the AFC and NFC cham-

, pions prepare the week before the game.You won't see the hard work involved inchanging a multipurpose indoor stadiumfrom college football to a tractor pull to col-lege basketball to professional football inless than a month. Each changeover of theLouisiana Superdome requires weeks ofplanning.

While the game will be played on Astro-Turf, the league champions practice muchof the week on the natural turf fields atTulane and the Saints' complex. There arehalf fields of AstroTurf at both practice sites.Three weeks before the pros arrive, teamsfrom the University of Alabama and theUniversity of Miami prepared for the SugarBowl at the same facilities. This is after a fullfootball season at Tulane and camps andweekly workouts by the Saints at their 12-year-old complex.

Some of the most critical judges of bothartificial and natural turf will be on hand forone week of "big stakes" football. Meetingtheir expectations involves truckloads ofequipment, dozens of people, and closecommunication among personnel at threedifferent sites.

Those in charge of the fields at all threelocations have worked and planned for26 Golf & Sports TURF

The Louisiana Superdome.

months for the event. Lester Vallet, ground-skeeper at the Saints practice facility, is themost seasoned. He retires this year afterparticipating in six Super Bowls and moreSugar Bowls than he can recall. Formerly agroundskeeper with Tulane and the Super-dome, Vallet joined the Saints when thepractice facility was built 12 years ago.

M.L. laGarde, associate athletic directorat Tulane, is also experienced in bowlgames. Sugar Bowl Stadium was locatedon the campus until the event was moved tothe Superdome and the old stadium wastorn down to make room for more campusbuildings. The Saints also used to practiceat the university before building their ownpractice facility.

The staff at the Superdome has handledall kinds of events since it was built in 1975.Stadium Manager Bob Johnson and FieldManager Jerry Anden have perfected thechangeover in the stadium while handlingconventions, boat shows, ice shows, basket-ball, rock concerts, and football. Stadiumoperations have improved since MCA/Spec-tacor took over management and added 68skyboxes.

The Superdome is a fixed-roof, enclosedstadium with mobile stands that will accom-modate 75,000 football fans for Super BowlXXIV. Stored within the stadium are 15-foot-wide rolls of AstroTurf, large sections of thewood basketball court, an ice rink withboards for hockey, and goals for each sport.The concrete floor is left bare for conven-tions and shows, covered with one of theabove surfaces for sports, or buried undertons of dirt for dirt events. Only the ice rinkwill not be used this month.

The year at the Superdome starts off withthe Sugar Bowl Classic on New Year's Day.The game between Alabama and Miami isactually the end of a three-day Sugar BowlFestival. For two nights prior to the Sugar

Bowl, four college basketball teams willcompete in the dome. In less than 24 hours,the basketball court has to be removed, thestands reconfigured, and the sections ofAstroTurf put back in place.

During basketball, one end zone remainsdown. "Alabama" was painted on this endzone turf in December before the area wascovered with tarps. As soon as the basket-ball court is removed, the pad is installed,and the remaining sections of the footballfield are rolled out from sideline to sidelineand fastened together with "zip-lock" typeclosures. The Miami end zone and theSugar Bowl logo then have to be paintedonto the AstroTurf in time to dry before thegame.

The day after the Sugar Bowl, Anden'screw will roll up the entire field and return itto bins in the rear of the stadium. Truck-loads of dirt will then be hauled inside thedome for a truck-and-tractor pull scheduledfor the 13th.

The Superdome crew has six days toremove the dirt and install the basketballcourt for a game on the 20th between NotreDame and Louisiana State University.Toma's crew moves in to prepare for theSuper Bowl on the 22nd.

The first order of business will be to washall paint off the AstroTurf. To accomplishthis, the turf is unrolled in the parking lot.After being wet down with hoses, a mildsolution of ammonia and water is sprayedon the turf with a boom sprayer. The paint,made by Products Research Service ofBelle Chase, LA, is designed specifically forartificial turf.

As the ammonia dissolves the paint, aTennant sweeper is used to scrub the turf.Finally, the paint residue is blasted off theturf with high-pressure hoses and the car-pet is squeegeed. "Since our turf is indoors,it is rarely exposed to ultraviolet light," saysJohnson. "It doesn't fade, but the white

paint can dull the green fibers if the turf isn'twashed and rinsed well:'

After washing, the turf is brought inside todry. Toma has shipped two large leafblowers from Kansas City to speed up thedrying process. The turf must be absolutelydry before the new lines and logos can bepainted.

Stencils for the NFL logo and the endzone designs must be made in less thanone week after the conference champion-ship games on Jan. 14. Calvin Sign Corp. inKansas City, MO handles this assignmentevery year. Calvin Autry constructs the six-mil plastic stencils based upon informationhe has gathered from each NFL contenderduring the final weeks of the season. Thetemplates will be in Toma's hands by Janu-ary 22. All new lines with professional hashmarks will be sprayed on the Superdomefield and the half field of artificial turf atTulane.

The work on the natural practice fieldsbegan in November. Both fields are Tifway419 hybrid bermudagrass. At the Saintspractice facility, Vallet has enough room toreconfigure the field three different ways todistribute any wear. This field surface willnot be overseeded. Instead it will be dyedgreen the week before the NFC championarrives.

The AFC champs will practice on peren-nial ryegrass (Ph.D.). laGarde started work-ing seed into his field in November.However, heavy rains and colder-than-normal temperatures slowed the establish-ment of the ryegrass. Another 1,500 poundsof Ph.D. were pregerminated and sown onthe field between Christmas and NewYear's Day. The field will be covered withtarps (black side up) each night from 3 p.m.to 10 a.m. to keep the field warm and thegrass growing.

During pregermination, 100 pounds ofseed are placed in 55-gallon drums. Thefirst day the seed is soaked for eight hoursin water containing Bovamura and Aqua-zorb wetting agent. This solution isremoved and the barrels are refilled withfresh water every eight hours. Within fourdays the seed will sprout. Toma then mixesit with an equal amount of Milorganite orcalcined clay in a cement mixer. After aer-ifying the field lightly, this material wasbroadcast as soon as the Sugar Bowlteams completed practice on New Year'sEve.

"Pregermination has come a long waysince the '60s," Toma reveals. "We pay a lotmore attention to the temperature of theseed in the barrel and how long it sits inwater. The seed needs air and moisture andmust stay within a certain temperaturerange to pop quickly:'

After the Super Bowl, Lester Vallet willretire from the Saints after 25 years inprofessional football. George and ChipToma must quickly clean up and repair allthree facilities in New Orleans before rush-ing off to Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, HI, toprepare for the Pro Bowl. Then Chip willreturn to Kansas City to begin planning a

new practice facility for the Chiefs, whileGeorge heads for the Royals' spring train-ing complex at Boardwalk and Baseball inOrlando, FL.

Preparation for Super Bowl XXV inTampa, FL, has already begun. It will be thesecond Super Bowl at the natural turf facil-ity under the direction of Rick Nafe. DickEricsen at the Metrodome in Minneapolis,MN, will be the groundskeeper for SuperBowl XXVI.

New NFL Commissioner Tagliabue isaware that he has much to prove to matchRozelle's record of 23 successful SuperBowls. But with experienced ground-skeepers to back him up, the job will be

considerably easier than the first worldchampionships in Los Angeles and Miami.

"Every year we learn more about bothnatural and artificial turf. It's up to the nextgeneration of groundskeepers to take whatwe've learned and apply it," says Toma. "Ithink the next decade will prove that theplaying surface deserves more attentionand skill to manage than in the past. Withmore $2 million players on our fields, it isour responsibility to make sure injuries arekept to a minimum. But everything we do forpro athletes can also be done at the collegeand high school level. All it takes is a com-mitment to quality turf and a willingness tohire the best groundskeepers available:'

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January, 1990 29Circle 177 on Postage Free Card

CHALKBOARD..TIPS FROM THE PROS

VIBRATORY PLOW PULLS MULTIPLE DUTY AT SEA PALMS

Golf course superintendent MaurieShields remembers when aeratingfairways was a difficult operation.

"It was like playing Russian roulette with acartridge in all six chambers," he says."When we tried to aerate we'd cut into ourhydraulic sprinkler control lines and reallycomplicate our lives:'

Shields oversees three nine-hole coursesat Sea Palms Golf and Tennis Resort, 90minutes south of Savannah on St. SimonIsland, GA. Built in the late '60s, thecourses have aged gracefully, but their oldirrigation systems have not.

The problem was three-pronged. First,there was an inadequate water flow andpressure supply. While irrigation lines ofnew courses step down from at least eightinches to a three-inch diameter between thepump and the heads, the Sea Palms sys-tem went from four to two inches. Shields'crews solved this problem by tying the sys-tems together, so they could assist eachother with supply and pressure.

Another problem was unmanageablewater distribution. Because of numerousrepairs over the years, the system could notbe properly managed. There were two fewcontrollers, deteriorating controllers, fieldcontrollers without pump starting capability,and poor power supplies. Managementcould not control the systems centrally, andcould operate only one watering program ata time. The units required a tremendousnumber of man-hours to reprogram forchanging weather conditions and normalcourse maintenance.

One of the biggest problems was the factthat the control hoses on 16 of the 18 holeswere buried only three inches beneath thesurface. As hoses deteriorated, replace-ments were added at the same depth witha sod plow.

"we couldn't aerate, and that affected justabout everything we attempted to do on thecourse," says Shields. "Water percolation,drainage, fertilizer, and pesticide penetra-tion all were hindered because we couldn'taerate the fairways. When you add soilcompaction due to the play-we had 8,000golfers on the course last March alone-you magnify the problem to extremes:'

Faced with these problems, Shields andhis crew made plans to correct them. Afterrecalling that an outside contractor hadcharged $12,700 to redo a hole the yearbefore, an amount that would exceed$228,000 for 18 holes, they opted to do thejob themselves. To do this, they acquired aDitch Witch Model 350sx vibratory plow.30 Golf & Sports TURF

Most of Sea Palm's fairways are linedwith large oak and pine trees which sendradial roots out beneath the fairway andrough surfaces. Shields and his crewlearned that roots extended well beyond thecenters of at least two 60-yard-wide fair-ways. These roots were soaking up waterand nutrients and causing the under-nourished grass above to yellow. This wasa particular problem under oaks in thespring, when developing leaves demandeda great amount of moisture from the rootsystem.

Plowing-in all newcontrol lines gave

Sea Palms anopportunity to redo

sprinkler andcontroller locations.

Course management began to realizethe extent of their root problems when theysaw their aerating equipment pull up solid,five-inch-diameter wood cores out of thegreens. In some places, the growing rootshad expanded beneath the concrete cartpaths, buckling them and requiring seven-dollar-a-foot replacement patches.

One day, as a Sea Palms employee was. pulling small-diameter pipe underground

behind the thin plow blade of the DitchWitch 350sx, Shields observed how easilythe blade sliced through the roots. He real-ized they could intentionally trim roots withthe plow.

If they trimmed them at or beyond thetrees' drip lines, to only a foot beneath thesurface, the trees themselves would not beharmed because most roots would be leftintact. The trimming would suddenlyeliminate competition between the severedroots and the grass under which they lay.Shields promptly instituted an undergroundtree-trimming program for fairways androughs, tee and green slopes, and cartpaths.

"It helped a great deal," Shields reveals."Tying our systems together and increasingthe number of sprinkling zones increasedour sprinkler throw by 10 to 20 percent. Andthat let us water the rough, too. Trimmingthe roots helped change a spotty, yellowing

rough into a lush and inviting one:'The 3/8-inch wide plow blade slit was

barely visible. By crabbing the four-wheel-drive trencher so its right-side wheels rolledover opposite sides of the cut, the machineoperator packed the dirt so that the cutbecame almost invisible. Rain and grassgrowth eliminated it completely within a fewdays.

Sea Palms management solved its shal-low control-hose problem by using a differ-ent plow, this one with a two-inch-widechute into which up to 12 or more 1/4-inchhydraulic control lines would fit. The plowburied the lines well below the depth of aer-ation equipment penetration.

The burying job was facilitated by ahomemade reel carrier frame, set on atruckster bed, which held up to 21 reels ofhydraulic hose and electrical wire. They arecolor-eoded according to use, green or fair-way heads, and for easy identification dur-ing hook-up. Spare tubes also wereincluded to solve future problems. The car-rier was driven ahead of the vibratory plow,and its bundle of hoses and wires was fedinto the plow chute by an employee walkingnext to it. More than 200,000 feet ofhydraulic line was used in the project.

Plowing-in all new control lines gave SeaPalms management an opportunity to redosprinkler and controller locations and func-tions. In some cases green and tee con-trollers were switched to control fairways,and green and tee box heads were con-trolled with satellites. Breaking into smallerzones allowed better and greater coveragefrom the heads.

"One station watered one green before,"explains Shields. "But since the elevatedback of a green needs more water than itsfront does, we broke each one down intotwo zones:'

Some new controllers were added so thatthe operator of each controller could see allits sprinkler heads work from that location.Before, the operator sometimes checkedanother fairway, found no one on it, andturned the remote controller on, only to findout late that a golfer had been sprayed ..

Shields looks back at the project withsatisfaction. It not only was performed at afraction of the potential cost, but it has alsogiven him more controls and a new aerationcapability. The crew performed the workaccording to their own schedule. By doingit themselves, they were never down formore than 24 hours. They usually did onecontroller at a time, while they irrigated andoperated throughout the whole project.