www.stma.org July 2014 | SportsTurf 47
Why STMA Should conSider
your field A Winner?
The Milton Hershey School (MHS) was founded in 1909 as a
school and home for orphaned boys. Today the MHS provides a cost-
free, private, coeducational school and home for children from low in-
come families and those with social need.
Catherine Hall is the middle division of the school, grades 5 through
8. In 2005 the Catherine Hall football field was constructed, outfitted
with irrigation, a herring bone drainage system, and seeded with a tall
fescue and Kentucky bluegrass mix.
In 2012, I became the Athletic Field Technician, overseeing the
Catherine Hall facilities. Having previously worked with collegiate
and professional sports teams, my expectations for field quality were
high. At Catherine Hall, there are only two full-time employees
charged with the care of all outdoor athletic facilities, myself and
my assistant, Joe Barr.
My initial assessment of the football field found the soil to be
compacted and the center of the field worn away. We seeded and
topdressed with compost between the hashes and used an AerWay
aerator machine twice a week to relieve compaction. We reduced
aerating to once a week after the season started, but the turf main-
tained its density.
Initially, we were using an older model paint machine that was slow
and used a lot of paint. I met with the athletic director and explained
how a newer, self-propelled paint machine would cut our time in half
and drastically reduce our paint use. We decided to purchase a self-pro-
pelled machine that arrived only 1 week before football tryouts.
Joe explained that, before my arrival and using the old paint ma-
chine, they would only paint the lines, field numbers and hash marks
down the center of the field. We decided it was time to do more and
widened the sidelines and goal lines to 8 inches, added yard marks,
and painted the coaches boxes solid white. We used a leftover bucket
of brown paint to line both sides of the 20 yard lines to represent the
red zone. The coaches marveled at the field's appearance and appreci-
ated having a full stand of grass in the center of the field. Spectators
commented that the field looked like that of a professional team and
the greatest compliment came from the players saying how proud they
were of their field.
