Getting Everyone’s Off the field view of the resodding process.
Carrick says, “Yet, despite those cost projections, we went for years thinking synthetic was the only option. Ten, as we got closer to the start of construction, I started thinking about the possibility of keeping it natural. I started talking with our team’s strength and conditioning coach and with our trainers and they all preferred natural grass. So, then the question was, ‘Is there any way we can keep natural grass?’ My first phone call was to Chad. We talked a couple days and figured out we probably could.”
Price says, “Te money they would be putting into going synthetic would buy a whole lot of natural grass sod. So, we looked at the costs of using the GameOnGrass and replacing the field before home games.” Carrick adds, “Doing the math with Chad, we determined that the worst-case scenario, that we would need to resod the entire field for all seven of the 2017-2018 home games, would come in at about $1 million. So, we could keep it natural, resod the entire field for every game, and still save UNC $400,000. Plus, there would be no added cost of removing the synthetic field.”
Input Carrick says, “We wanted to be totally transparent and let everyone have input. We knew we had a good plan for keeping natural grass in the stadium, but we wanted everyone to understand what it would take and why we’d go to the extra work to make it happen. Tat was key. We wanted everyone in the department on the same page. If half wanted natural grass and
half or so wanted to go synthetic, we’d have gone synthetic.”
Price says, “Casey and I went to his boss, Mike Bunting, associate athletic director of facility planning and management, whom I’d also known and worked with for a long time, and said maybe you should consider staying with natural grass. Ten we ran the numbers for him, showing that financially it would be a benefit, too.”
Carrick says, “So we shared the idea with Lou Hernandez, our head football strength and conditioning coach, and with Kenny Boyd, head athletic trainer for football, and they were all for it. Next, we met with Larry Fedora, head football coach and he said, absolutely, he’d rather play on natural grass and he was really excited about the possibility. So, Chad, Mike and I met with Bubba Cunningham and reported the consensus on staying with natural grass and ran the numbers for him. Tat’s when it all started to come together.”
Plotting and Vetting Carrick says, “Knowing we had the support of the coaches and staff, we had to figure out how could we practice on Tursday night, remove the existing field, install the new sod, get it painted for the Friday afternoon practice and have the field game-ready on Saturday. Chad’s been doing the overnight change out for the Eagles, Redskins and Dolphins, so we knew it could be done with his staff and our staff working together. Ten our team played on one of his GameOnGrass fields in Florida and they thought it was great.”
Price says, “Te UNC administrators also had to answer to the administrators for the visiting teams who, when they learned of what was planned, would want to make sure they were putting their players on a good surface. When other teams inquired, the UNC folks could tell them they had just played on it in Miami and their reaction was that was a great field. Tose types of experiences and comments helped a lot with the comfort level.”
A closeup view of a section of GameOnGrass. 44 TPI Turf News January/February 2019
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
