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/96775
shots) called out and portable grandstands for 1,200 spectators. Phase 2 will see the construction of permanent grandstands, team rooms, event lighting, a press box, shared filming platforms, improved concessions and landscaping. After 2 years of effort, Phase 1 opened in summer 2012, ready for pre-season practice. Before the Bedford revamp, the Tigers shared the nearby Class of '52 Field with men's and women's lacrosse teams. That field's synthetic turf had seen 9 years of relentless varsity action, yet the toughest challenge was prepping the site for field hockey. Every day, 2 hours before practice or a game, a grounds crewman rolled out two portable water cannons, fired up the engines and saturated the field for 80 minutes, laying down nearly 12,000 gallons of water. This created a wet surface that reduced bounce, but lacked uniformity due to the inconsistencies of the water cannons and the time required to irrigate the field. Most of the water drained through to a subsurface elastic cushioning layer. At half-time, the grounds crew went through the drill again, this time shooting water from the end zones toward the middle of the field. "It was extremely labor-intensive, wasted a huge amount of water, and usually resulted in patchy wet and dry areas," says Graydon. "There was very little consistency." Conferring with the coaching staff during the Bedford Field redesign, Graydon was charged with creating a best-in-the-nation fa- www.stma.org Princeton University is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. cility that would be a model for the league and a future site for international competitions. "Thanks to the generosity of Princeton's alumni, we were able to realize our dream of developing one of the finest field hockey facilities in the world," says the associate director. Graydon is well-known in college athletics and has been affiliated with the university since the 1970s. He originally joined the school as a consulting entomologist, then oversaw field maintenance for nearly 10 years as assistant director for facilities and events. In 2005 he was named associate athletic director and oversees capital projects and manages the athletics facilities staff. SYNTHETIC TURF: 18+ YEARS AT PRINCETON Princeton installed its first synthetic field in the mid-1990s and now has six artificial turf surfaces for men's and women's lacrosse, baseball, track, football, field hockey and soccer, while also sharing the facilities with club sports, intramurals and summer camps. SportsTurf 23