Looking Out My Window
Looking out my trailer window I see an athletic field looking an awful lot like the field I played soccer on when I was in high school. Three or four different types of turf in patches, low spots, high spots, and kind of small. The girls don't seem too hampered by these imperfections, the field hockey team is looking pretty sharp. But I can imagine as they travel to other schools, occasionally they're struck with envy playing on those big beautiful fields with their perfect markings and synthetic turf! If only Nerinx Hall had one of those!
Of course this will all change soon. There are a lot of things I see out my window, but my thoughts are dominated by the challenges of next spring. We need to deliver a perfect Sportexe athletic field in a just a few months time to be ready for Fall 2007 sports. And it will be a beautiful field. It will stretch a vast 350 feet in length and 200 feet in width. That's an additional 20,000 square feet of field by my calculations. Because of this we'll have to take a small addition down off the back of Nerinx Hall, which presents us with additional challenges. But not to worry about this lost classroom space, we are more than making up for it with brand new classroom space in the Heagney. Along the northern edge of the new field will be brand new retaining walls, walkways to existing sidewalks, bleacher pads and benches. Hey, a place to sit!
So what's so special about synthetic turf? The benefits are too numerous to mention here, but comfort, performance, and environmental friendliness top the list. As anyone who's played or walked on one of these things knows, they offer the perfect blend of firmness and softness (a Missouri State Sportexe field pictured to the left). These new systems are lot better on the knees and studies have shown fewer sports related injuries as compared to older first generation systems. I suppose this has to do with the rubber and sand infill. Also no fertilizer or watering required! There is an enormous amount of irrigation water pumped on natural turf systems the world over just to keep them alive. This wasted water is then usually mixed with fertilizers and chemicals, all washing into our watersheds where the nutrients cause all sorts of problems (can you say eutrophication?). With the new field, an elaborate sub-surface drainage system will shed any rainwater immediately from the surface. This means instant playing time and no more puddles. Practice can run later into the season and start earlier in the spring. The rainwater collected by this system does not run off as quickly as water off a typical parking lot. Instead the system is designed to hold, or detain, much of the water and slowly release it to the municipal storm drain. This microdetention is a great solution for the deleterious effects of storm water runoff to your local streams (which incidentally are the Deer and Mackenzie Creeks. The Missouri DNR told me so).
So have a great field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer season...and archery, and whatever else you do out there (did I see football?!). Say good-bye to the dips, ridges and hills because a brand new field is on its way. With all those little rubber leaves of grass, I have to wonder, what would Walt Whitman say?
Of course this will all change soon. There are a lot of things I see out my window, but my thoughts are dominated by the challenges of next spring. We need to deliver a perfect Sportexe athletic field in a just a few months time to be ready for Fall 2007 sports. And it will be a beautiful field. It will stretch a vast 350 feet in length and 200 feet in width. That's an additional 20,000 square feet of field by my calculations. Because of this we'll have to take a small addition down off the back of Nerinx Hall, which presents us with additional challenges. But not to worry about this lost classroom space, we are more than making up for it with brand new classroom space in the Heagney. Along the northern edge of the new field will be brand new retaining walls, walkways to existing sidewalks, bleacher pads and benches. Hey, a place to sit!
So what's so special about synthetic turf? The benefits are too numerous to mention here, but comfort, performance, and environmental friendliness top the list. As anyone who's played or walked on one of these things knows, they offer the perfect blend of firmness and softness (a Missouri State Sportexe field pictured to the left). These new systems are lot better on the knees and studies have shown fewer sports related injuries as compared to older first generation systems. I suppose this has to do with the rubber and sand infill. Also no fertilizer or watering required! There is an enormous amount of irrigation water pumped on natural turf systems the world over just to keep them alive. This wasted water is then usually mixed with fertilizers and chemicals, all washing into our watersheds where the nutrients cause all sorts of problems (can you say eutrophication?). With the new field, an elaborate sub-surface drainage system will shed any rainwater immediately from the surface. This means instant playing time and no more puddles. Practice can run later into the season and start earlier in the spring. The rainwater collected by this system does not run off as quickly as water off a typical parking lot. Instead the system is designed to hold, or detain, much of the water and slowly release it to the municipal storm drain. This microdetention is a great solution for the deleterious effects of storm water runoff to your local streams (which incidentally are the Deer and Mackenzie Creeks. The Missouri DNR told me so).So have a great field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer season...and archery, and whatever else you do out there (did I see football?!). Say good-bye to the dips, ridges and hills because a brand new field is on its way. With all those little rubber leaves of grass, I have to wonder, what would Walt Whitman say?
posted by Dan at 8:33 AM
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