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: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/282941
www.sportsturfonline.com 40 SportsTurf | April 2014 INFINITY PARK, Glendale, Colorado Level of Submission: Schools/Parks Category of Submission: Sporting Grounds Sports Turf Manager: Noel Harryman Title: Manager Turf Operations Education: Bachelor's Degree in Business Man- agement Experience: 2002-2003 Landscape Supervisor (Fresh Aire Enterprises); 2002-2007 Material Supplier Manager/Designer (Landscape Solutions); 2007-2009 Project Manager (Graff's Turf Farms); fields worked on include Coors, Invesco, Dicks, Folsom, Wrigley, Infinity Park, Haymarket; 2009-2011 Assistant Turf Manager, City of Glendale; 2011-Current Manager Turf Opera- tions 2012 City of Glendale Staff: Josh Bertrand, Gene Hazlett, Vickie Allen, Kevin Brown, Matt McCord, Jody Yonke, Joe Fererra, Christi Clay, Corey Williams, and Chris Roozing. Original construction: 2007 Renovation: Irrigation replacement on the playing surface. The laterals had to be lowered because they were not installed according to the specs. The lines were punctured do to deep tine aeration. The sod was stripped out along the laterals running east to west on the field and then new sod was installed. We were forced to use thick cut sod in order to be able to play on the surface shortly after the renovation. The renova- tion was done because of the punctured irrigation lines and because the original installation did not follow the irrigation specifications. The lines were anywhere from 4-8" depths. By lowering the laterals we are able to deep tine aerate up to 12" depth and still be safe. The city has also thought about putting in the Desso system in the grass and would not have been able to entertain this system without lowering the lines. The renovation went very well in 2011 and not at all noticeable at this point. In hindsight I would probably push to have the entire field pulled out and laser leveled and a complete resod. Pulling out a 4 foot wide area is difficult to get a perfect grade. We still notice a few imperfections. Turfgrass variety: Midnight, Awesome, Impact, Nu-Destiny-Kentucky Bluegrass (70%) Caddieshack, Accent, Top-Gun-Perennial Ryegrass (30%) Overseeding: Overseeding is done with Kentucky bluegrass. The pitch is overseeded four times a year (last week of March, first week of May, mid-June, and the last week of August). The first three overseedings were done with 10#/1000sq.ft. and the last overseeding in August was done with 15#/1000sq.ft. The seed mix is Midnight, Awesome, Impact, and NuDestiny Kentucky Bluegrass. For divot repair we use a 1:3:1 ratio of pregerminated seed, USGA Sand, and fertilizer. Rootzone composition: 92% Sand; 8% other (4% silt, 2% Clay, 2% organic matter) Drainage: GraviTURF designed by Dan Almond of Millennium Sports. Using 4-inch ADS drain pipe, lo- cated on 15-foot centers, set in pea gravel, 10 inches below surface. WHY STMA SHOULD CONSIDER YOUR FIELD A WINNER? The season opened this year on March 3, 2013. We had a fair amount of snow in February and one corner of our field re- mained frozen through January and February. We were hoping that the corner would thaw out enough to have a safe playing surface, however with 2 weeks until the season opener we were forced to come up with a different plan. We had to rent a heating system that they use to thaw the ground before they pour con- crete. The system was very labor intensive and also expensive to rent. The thawing process took about a week to complete but we were able to get in the scheduled game and made sure the field was safe for play. March and April ended up being our biggest snow months and the snow always seemed to come the day before our matches. We were forced to plow the field multiple times in order to make sure the games were played. The field was rented to Magpul on June 29. They hosted a farewell to Colorado and had approximately 4,500 people on the field. The event went well and there was very limited damage from tents vendor booths and concessions. Another challenge that we had was Colorado State University asked to host a spring scrimmage at Infinity Park to try and rally the Denver alumni. The field was already scheduled for rugby tour- naments the following day so we had to figure out how to effec- tively and efficiently flip the field from football to rugby. We spoke directly with the CSU coaching staff and convinced them that since it was only a practice to leave the goal post where they were. This made the field 10 yards shorter than a normal field but no one knew because we did not paint numbers on the yardage mark- ers. The evening after the practice we painted the football lines green (big thanks to Bret Baird of Dick's Sporting Good Park on green paint selection) and then restriped the field for the next day. The biggest challenge of the year came after the Serevii and Glendale invitational sevens tournament. On the playing sur- face we had 42 games in a 2-day span. The field held up to all the play very well but did need a lot of divots filled throughout the following week.