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/726375
50 SportsTurf | October 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com Questions? Send them to 202 Kottman Hall, 2001 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210 or sherratt.1@osu.edu Or, send your question to Grady Miller at North Carolina State University, Box 7620, Raleigh, NC 27695-7620, or email grady_miller@ncsu.edu Q&A with Pamela Sherratt I n 1977 Harry Gill, field man- ager at Milwaukee County Stadium, started sending out Christmas cards to fellow groundskeepers throughout the country, soliciting a movement to come together as a group. Not long after- ward, Dr. Bill Daniel, professor emeritus at Purdue University, hosted an annual turf conference at Purdue and added a sports turf session. He invited Dick Ericson (field manager at Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis), George Toma (NFL and Kansas City Royals and Chiefs), and Harry Gill to speak. The sports turf session was a huge success, and so the following day, Harry, Dick, George, and Dr. Daniel founded the Sports Turf Managers Association! Not surprisingly, the most prestigious Founders Awards, given at the STMA banquet each year, are named after these four men. The formation of STMA by these volun- teers was monumental. Each one of them had full time jobs and families but still donated their precious time to the cause. They had humble beginnings indeed, sharing office space and an executive secretary with the National Institute of Parks & Grounds Management and holding the first national STMA conference in 1986 in conjunction with Golf Course Superintendents Association of America in San Francisco. As with any new organization, it was made up entirely of volunteers; the first official STMA office was housed in the garage of the late Dr. Kent Kurtz. STMA has come a long way since then, and today is operated from dedicated offices in Lawrence, KS by CEO Kim Heck and her staff. Over the years, STMA has grown exponentially in member numbers (from 300 to around 3,000), and has added a lot more services to the member benefit portfolio. There's no doubt that STMA is seen as a highly professional association and the official voice of sports turf industry professionals. At the heart of STMA's opera- tion though, it still relies heavily on volunteers to step up to the plate and serve on a committee or on the Board. The types of people who volunteer in this way, who want to make a positive impact on the sports turf industry, exhibit special quali- ties. What are those personal qualities? How can I describe them? On August 27 this year Cincinnati Bengal head groundskeeper Darian Daily passed away at much too young an age. I bring Darian up not because he was a good friend—which he was—or because he was so well known in the industry, which he was. I bring him up because he represented the characteristics and qualities that make a good volunteer. Darian graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in plant and soil science in 1992. He started his field management journey at the Winston Salem Spirits, before progressing to Columbus Crew SC, and finally to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2003. His career goal was to work in the NFL, which he obviously achieved, and by any measure Darian was a highly successful head groundskeeper at the pinnacle of his career. The story could end there, but it doesn't. Darian joined STMA in 1996 and im- mediately jumped in to volunteer. He was also President of the Ohio STMA Chapter (OSTMA) from 2001-2002. He served on Membership and Conference Committees and was elected to serve on the STMA board from 2005 to 2006. He chaired the Informa- tion Outreach Committee from 2007 until his death. He was STMA's technical liaison to the American Sports Builders Association, taking the lead on review of and content for their technical materials that involved sports fields, specifically for ASBA's Sports Fields: A Construction and Maintenance Manual. In addition to his STMA service, Darian created, along with Tony Leonard of the Philadelphia Eagles and Dr. Andy McNitt of Penn State, an annual seminar for NFL groundskeepers, believing that they could enhance their profession by coming together each year. He also had a passion for paint- ing fields and oversaw many field-painting jobs at college football bowl games each winter, including BCS Championship games. Whether it was painting fields with his friend and colleague, James Hlavaty, testing new bermudagrass cultivars, or trying out new maintenance practices (he was one of the first in the USA to fraze mow his fields), Darian believed wholeheartedly in sharing his findings and his knowledge at confer- ences, in classrooms with students, and on social media. He was a team player, and as Matt Duncan, CSFM, recently said, "If you met him once, he was your friend." For his service to the STMA and the industry, Darian received the OSTMA Founders Award in 2004, the STMA Dick Ericson Founders' Award for 2011, and he was recognized with the Professional Excellence Award at the 2014 OTF Confer- ence. Many more accolades were bestowed upon him over the years, but he was far too humble to tell you about them. At the center of Darian's world were his wife, Carole, and their two children. He was first and foremost a family man, but his boundless energy and passion allowed him to give back so much to the sports turf industry that he loved. Darian represented the qualities found in a volunteer — energy, a sense of duty, reli- ability, selflessness, passion, and an ability to be a team player. And he was, actually, a volunteer in every sense of the word, because he was also a lifelong University of Tennes- see fan, a true "Volunteer." He will be missed greatly by many. DARIAN DAILY, A TRUE "VOLUNTEER"