While landscape superintendents have many responsibilities, sports field management is one of the most visible. While only a select few of you end up working at the major stadiums, many more are on the front lines of the community making the fields playable for the weekend soccer tournaments.

As a coach of soccer and baseball I can attest that the condition of a sports field is often critical to the result of the game. I?EUR??,,????'???ve played on all kinds of fields in all kinds of conditions and I have two thoughts for you . . . Bag the grass and invest in drainage :)

Even more important is to get the families who use the fields involved in their maintenance. In our baseball league, every family is assigned several days to help maintain the field. Not only does this assist the landscape crew, but it also instills a great deal of pride in the way the fields are left after a weekend of heavy use.

If your community leagues do not insist on this program, you should attend a meeting or try to get it on the agenda. In our little city, everyone wants to play ball at Handy Field . . .

While natural grass is great, my oldest son has just started with the drum line in marching band at his high school. The football team there is one of the best in the nation and has been ranked in the top 10 for the past several years . . . Not that I?EUR??,,????'???m bragging, nor that the Friday Night Lights mentality . . . GO LANCERS . . . has infected me . . . GO LANCERS . . . but the reason I bring it up . . . GO LANCERS . . . is that they ?EUR??,,????'??get to?EUR??,,????'??? practice on a field of artificial turf.

I say ?EUR??,,????'??get to?EUR??,,????'??? because when we were there for a band demonstration my other son and me were out on the field running football routes. The way they seed the turf with the rubber chips makes for a great playing field. You get great traction and extra spring in every step . . . However . . . after just a couple of years the grass has a tendency to begin breaking off. This leaves both bare spots and lots of loose pieces of fiber all over the field.

Another pitfall is the little rubber chips stick to everything. That is, until you get into your car or home and they all fall off on the floor. We literally have little black peppers on every surface of our cars and home . . .

Of course one of the biggest problems with the artificial stuff is the heat. At that 5 p.m. demonstration, the field was at least 100 degrees while the air temp was about 80 degrees. We were literally cooking. Bare feet were definitely not an option, reminiscent of walking across hot sand in the middle of a summer day. In areas where heat is an issue, these fields can become dangerous to the athletes. In some places, like Las Vegas, the city is paying the residents to change out the real stuff for artificial. I understand that this somewhat lowers the water usage, but it also stops play of any kind on that surface during the day.

These are real problems associated with artificial turf. However, it is hard to argue that the playing surface doesn?EUR??,,????'???t make for a consistent game. I?EUR??,,????'???m not sure what can be done to drop the temperature of the playing field, but if they can figure that one out, and I know they are trying . . . you had better become familiar with the art of maintaining all kinds of sports fields because that artificial stuff is here to stay.

?EUR??,,????'??+God Bless