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/605094
FIELD SCIENCE 10 SportsTurf | December 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com FACILITY & OPERATIONS "You start with the stadium field," Ianni said. "That's more than a football field to the institution. There's a great deal of pressure to produce a product that's representative of many aspects in the institution. A lot of people watch that and want to see how that field looks and how it performs. "I think we have the best fields in this part of the country and that impacts those student-athletes. In football, you've seen statistics from the NFL Players Association that 93-94% of those players would rather play on grass, but they want to play on good grass and that's important. Our student-athletes know that No. 1, the surfaces she provides are safe and they can play on them with confidence they're not going to get injured by bad turf, and No. 2, they're in such pristine condition it maxi- mizes their ability to be successful, and that's the bottom line. We want to make sure the fields are as good as they can be so those athletes can be the best they can be." Michigan State's one-of-a-kind football field was updated to the specifications formulated in a MSU doctoral student's thesis and the Spartans' synthetic practice fields perform more like natural grass thanks to a composition of sand-granulated rubber topdressing created after consultations with the school's kinesiology and human performance departments. "Collaboration at an academic institution is important," Fouty said, adding that managing personal stress positively is something turf managers do not often think about. "Having other important areas in my life provides perspective and life balance, which translate into confidence and focus on the job." Fouty, her full-time staff of three, two retired lawn-mower operators and small legion of part-time student employees, are responsible for a lot of acreage Spartan athletes depend upon for their success, but the team concept extends well beyond the white lines at MSU. "The way I view leadership is I believe you need to be as good a follower as a leader and everybody leads from where they are," she said. "I believe in making sure my staff has everything they need to do what they do every day without frustration or hesitation. I feel it's my job to develop my guys just like I'm a head coach and I've got my own team. I jump in where I can to assist when time is of the essence, but allow the team to also make choices about what is needed and the best way to accomplish those tasks. The only way we learn is to make the decisions and be accountable for them. "We take immense pride in what we are able to contribute. It's really special to have so much passion for doing what you love to do, doing it for your alma mater, and then watching those programs become part of a national stage. Every piece is so important. I tell the guys, every time you pick up a piece of trash or make something better, we're contributing to that success because you never know when a recruit's going to stop by and be awed and amazed by the opportunity to play at these facilities." ■ ST Steve Grinczel is an award-winning journalist who covered Michigan State Athletics for more than 20 years with Booth Newspapers who has been writing exclusive content for msuspar- tans.com since 2011. Recent photo of Amy Fouty's crew: Front row (L to R), Georgeanna Heitshusen, Iowa St. turf student; Andersson Pires Rodrigues, Brazilian turf student; and Shane Keultjes, MSU turf student. Back row (L to R): Dale Reif, equipment operator; Jim Bartolacci, equipment operator; Jake Lowery, student athlete; Jared Knoodle, Groundskeeper II; Andy Flynn, Groundskeeper III; and Ian Bumpus, Groundskeeper I.