They run this turf: The football field’s facelift
Casey Burton, Sports Editor
The grass is always greener at North Greenville University, especially with the upcoming new turf for the football field.
North Greenville University’s football field, Younts Stadium, is about the same age as the students. The stadium was built in the early 2000’s with natural grass as the playing field. In 2014, the natural grass was replaced by artificial Sports Turf. The field turf was put in by a construction company called Sportscapes Construction. Soon, to be updated with new turf, the NGU sports facility is ready to revamp the stadium floor.
A football field’s turf life expectancy is about 10 years. After about a decade of use, the turf use becomes unstable and less safe.
As NGU’s current football turf grass is coming up to its 10th year anniversary…it’s time to replace it for the athletic performance and safety of the players who play on it.
The football players are not the only ones who use the field. However, it is their home court, it is also the home field for band and cheer. Oftentimes the field is used as the stage people walk across for graduation, homecoming walks, senior night attributes and other important events.
The same company who installed the current turf, Sportscapes Construction will be projected to revamp and install the new football turf over this coming summer. They will do this before the summertime football practices.
The players will have an adequate amount of time to familiarize with the field during the summer conditioning and practices that will be held shortly after the implantation of the new turf.
A few other great pros to having turf is that it eliminates grass stains, it looks better, there’s no bare spots or ruts, no harsh fertilizers, it’s easier to keep up with, no mud from rain and rain can’t potentially ruin it. Therefore, in retrospect, the artificial turf and upkeep of it all is very much worth it.
The new revamp of the field is something that has been in the works for some time now. The NGU alumni and the sports-lovers of the community are all very excited to see it finally come to be.
Billy Watson, assistant VP for Student Life said, “The new football field turf is something all of us at the athletic complex are excited about. I’m big into sports and NGU, so anything that helps us look good; I’m all for. The upkeep is really quite simple. It is a lot less work than real grass, let me tell you. All we have to do is replace it once every 10 years and that sounds pretty manageable to me.”
The new coming turf may look a little different from how it looked before. Some people may not even realize the difference, but the players will definitely be able to tell the difference.
The logo in the center of the field may be revamped and some of the lines and colors in the end zones will be new or replaced. The overall replacement of the field takes care of safety needs and some cosmetic ones on the field as well.
