SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/369217
26 SportsTurf | September 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com Facility & Operations | By Bruce Whitehead, CMAA S econdary school athletic administrators today face great challenges in maintaining sports fields. One of the 14 legal duties of coaches and athletic administrators is to provide a safe environment for student athletes that includes playing fields, yet athletic administrators are facing budget cuts that challenge the ability to do so. In an effort to maintain playing fields, the athletic administrator must be creative in field management and must develop ways to acquire the needed resources with less money. T h e l i m i t e d r e s o u r c e s experienced by most athletic administrators fall in one or more of the following areas: (1) Knowledge—a large number of athletic administrators do not have the knowledge or training relative to the care and main- tenance of natural or synthetic turf fields. In addition, a grow- ing percentage of principals and superintendents have little or no background in athletics and do not realize the impor- tance of supporting the athletic administrator in maintaining safe playing fields; (2) Finances/ Resources—many athletic administrators are being asked to cut budgets in these challenging financial times for school districts; (3) Personnel—in many situations, the athletic administrator may not have a grounds manager for the sports fields or at best there may be a grounds manager for the entire school district of which the athletic fields would be a part of that person's responsibility. The NIAAA has made strides in addressing the limited knowledge of some athletic administrators. The NIAAA Sports Turf Committee composed of both athletic administrators and individuals from the industry corporate side has devel- oped a number of programs to educate athletic administrators relative to management of sports turf fields. Four courses have been written on the care and management of both natural and synthetic fields. These 4-hour seminar classes are taught across the country by the NIAAA. In addition, the committee writes articles for the NIAAA's quarterly publication, Interscholastic Athletic Administration. A third education program created by the committee is the annual sports turf seminar conducted at the National Athletic Directors Conference. All of these initiatives provide training for the athletic administrator in the area of care and maintenance of sports turf fields. Athletic administrators are encouraged to take advantage of other educational opportunities such as seminars or field days conducted by regional STMA chapters, by university agronomy departments or by companies in the turf industry. The NIAAA encourages its member State Athletic Administrator Associations to partner with an STMA chapter in their state to conduct sports turf seminars at state athletic administrator conferences. It is not easy to address the limited personnel available to maintain the fields. If the athletic administrator is faced with a lack of staff to properly maintain the fields, there are some options. One is to designate funds in the athletic budget to hire personnel. This is usually not a viable option because the athletic budget is already stretched far too thin. Another option is to ask the school district to allocate more funds to employ necessary grounds maintenance personnel. This is also a challenging option because of tight school budgets and the need to hire academic staff first. There is also the educational gap in many districts where the superintendent and/or school board does not understand the importance of maintaining safe fields. Unfortunately, too many school leaders learn the impor- tance of safe fields the hard way when facing litigation due to an injury on an unsafe field. School districts then realize the cost MainTaining SchOOl aThleTic FieldS On liMiTed budgeTS Bruce Whitehead, CMAA In many communities a partnership between the school district and the park department or golf course can result in a sharing of the equipment to meet the needs of all entities. ››