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/714252
FIELD SCIENCE 22 SportsTurf | September 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com practice earlier so our programs can be more competitive earlier in the season. From the field operations staff perspective we learned a great deal monitoring weather, soil temperatures, and moisture content. As technology advances so does the role and need for understanding of sports field managers. Professional development and continued education is a must for today's athletic field manager to be successful given the rapidly changing technology. We must evolve with the times to be a valued professional in our organizations. If you have questions please feel free to e-mail me t fouty@ath.msu.edu. Amy Fouty, CSFM, is athletic turf manager for Michigan State Athletics. as we had diligently planned. As with all projects, it had a few challenges, especially since we were installing the first electric ribbon field heating system in North America. Things electrically work a little different in Europe than the US but we persevered and worked through the issues as the team completed fall practices. January 11, 2016, arrived and we turned the heat on for the first time. We worked through a few bugs with the manufacturer's assistance and 10 days later had the field thawed out and playable. So you will probably ask, so were you planning to grow grass? The answer is no, we do not use the system to grow grass at that time of year; we use the system to thaw and keep the ground thawed so that the surface is safe and playable for student- athletes to practice. I will admit Mother Nature reminded us that she was in charge of the weather a few times through the process. We learned what was feasible and what was not. By early March we finally reached a point where we saw some consistency in the weather conditions. During this time we were able to use the system to keep quality playable conditions during freezing and thawing periods in the weather, which often in the past would have caused unplayable conditions. Overall I believe it was a successful experiment and one that will continue to provide us with opportunity to play and Professional development and continued education is a must for today's athletic field manager to be successful given the rapidly changing technology