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/517437
FROM THE SIDELINES A t a middle school track meet this spring I overheard another parent expressing surprise that the large high school host "still had a real grass football field." Later that day I heard a kid tell his mom, "That grass is so thick!" The comments reminded me of an email I received in March from an industry friend who was irate, to say the least, about an item that had appeared in our e-newsletter, "Synthetic Turf Insider." The piece was about an 8-year-old synthetic field that had been deemed unplayable and at the end of it was a link to an earlier article from the same news- paper, which I had inadvertently included in the posting. My friend had clicked on this link, which took him to a page that had some quotes from the high school's AD; for example, "Maintenance of the field is easy; we sweep every two weeks and cleanse with groom [sic] every year. The total cost is about $2,000, annually, for this; the cost to properly maintain a grass field annually is $40,000." You can see why my friend was, as my teenagers say, "PO'd," since that $40K fig- ure is way out of line with what it costs to maintain a quality grass field. He referenced the work the late Dr. AJ Powell did a few years ago comparing budgets for natural v. synthetic, and there are other sources of this information available, including on the STMA website. My friend wrote: "So, even if we accept [the AD's] numbers and it DOES cost $40K per year for grass, and we maintain it for the 8 years this turf field lasted, the total main- tenance cost for that grass field would be $320K. To initially put in the turf field prob- ably cost well over $400K and 8 years later they're spending another $300K to replace it. Sounds to me like the field had a total cost of well over $700K for the same 8 year period. If we don't even count the first installation of turf the comparison over 8 years would be $320K for grass, $316K for turf when you add $2K/year maintenance cost for turf field [the figure cited by the AD in the article]. Those are facts using the article's numbers. This [AD] is just spouting verbatim what turf sales people have said to him but he's just misinformed." I was sorry to have so frustrated my friend, who by the way isn't a natural grass zealot; he understands there is a place for both types of surfaces. He gets agitated though because this kind of misinformation gets circulated all the time by reporters who don't look more deeply into the numbers. But as he wrote, "I'm simply not going to concede the budget argument. If we want budget numbers on what it takes to main- tain surfaces we should be talking to Sports Turf Managers!" ■ ST Eric Schroder Editorial Director eschroder@specialtyim.com 717-805-4197 6 SportsTurf | June 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com EPG Media & Specialty Information 3300 Fernbrook Lane N, Suite 200, Plymouth, MN 55447 The Official Publication Of The Sports Turf Managers Association President: Allen Johnson, CSFM Immediate Past President: David Pinsonneault, CSFM, CPRP President-Elect: Jeff Salmond, CSFM Secretary/Treasurer: Timothy Van Loo, CSFM Vice-President Commercial: James Graff Professional Facilities: Dan Bergstrom Academic: Jeffrey Fowler Higher Education: Matt Anderson Parks & Recreation: Sarah Martin, CSFM K-12: Bobby Behr, CSFM Commercial: Doug Schattinger Elected-at-Large: Jimmy Simpson, CSFM Elected-at-Large: David Anderson Chief Executive Officer: Kim Heck STMA OFFICE 805 New Hampshire Suite E Lawrence, KS 66044 Phone: 800-323-3875 Fax: 800-366-0391 Email: STMAinfo@STMA.org www.STMA.org EDITORIAL Group publisher: David Voll Editorial Director: Eric Schroder Technical Editor: Dr. Joey Young Art Director: Brian Snook Production Manager: Karen Kalinyak STMA Editorial Communications Committee Chairman: Sarah Martin, CSFM TJ Brewer, CSFM; Joe Churchill; Jim Cornelius, CSFM; Jeremy Driscoll; Cliff Driver, CSFM; Eric Fasbender, CSFM; Mark Frever, CSFM; Matt Hollan; Jamie Mehringer; Greg Petry; Jeff Salmond, CSFM; Troy Smith, CSFM; Scott Stevens; Dr. Joey Young Publisher's Notice: We Assume No Responsibility For The Validity Of Claims In Connection With Items Appearing In Sportsturf. Reader Service Numbers Are Given To Facilitate Further Inquiry. Mention Of A Commercial Product Does Not Imply Endorsement By Sportsturf Or EPG Media & Specialty Information, Or Preference Over Similar Products Not Mentioned. THE "COST" OF FRUSTRATION