The Bear's 1988 seasonwill provide an excellent

co",paris~rlJJetween naturaland artificial turf.

The Battle for Natural TurfAt Chicago's Soldier Field

The talk at the Chicago Bears' trainingcamp this summer was not aboutRefrigerator Perry's weight or Jim

McMahon's shoulder. Instead, the coachesand the players were "really excited" aboutplaying their first home game on natural turfsince 1970, says Ken Mrock, the Bears' headgroundskeeper.

After two years of negotiations betweenthe Bears and the Chicago Park District,the team got what it wanted, natural turf inSoldier Field. "The park district and Turf-grass Services Inc. really deserve a lot of

, praise for pulling this off," says Mrock, theformer superintendent of golf courses forthe park district. It took tremendous effort, by many people to work out all the detailsand get the PAT (Prescription Athletic Turf)field installed in time for the exhibition game

.with the Miami Dolphins on August 6. But,they did it and everyone in the National Foot-ball League will be watching this fall to seeif natural turf really makes a difference.

The Bears' 1988 season will provide anexcellent comparison of the two surfaces.In previous seasons they played an aver-age of only five games on natural turf. This'year they will play 12 plus three preseasongames on real grass. "Fifteen out of 20games this year will be on natural turf,instead of four or five," says Mrock.

The players won't get to step onto the newfield until the day before the Miami game.The Kentucky bluegrass sod has been downonly six weeks, six of the hottest and dryestweeks in Chicago history. The city has hada record five days of 100 degree plus tem-peratures and is behind ten inches in rain-22 sportsTURF

fall. A watering ban has made irrigating thefresh sod a subject of controversy.

It's ironic to think that too much water wasone of the major reasons the PAT Systemwas selected, says Roger Bossard, consul-tant to the park district for the project andhead groundskeeper for the White Sox.Soldier Field is just a few blocks fromblustery Lake Michigan. "A strong wind outof the northeast can raise the level of thelake as much as 15 inches and push thewater table up with it." In the past, lake waterhas backed up into the storm drains blockingthe runoff from the field.

"A professional football field has to removerain almost as fast as it falls," Bossard adds."With only ten home games, the team andthe stadium can't afford a flood. It was impor-tant to separate the field drainage from thestorm sewers and the water table. The plas-tic liner of the PAT System let us do that."

For Mrock, Bossard and park district per-sonnel, the story began in the fall of 1986.Bears' owner Michael McCaskey and CoachMike Ditka made it clear they wanted "toplay on real green grass." They hintedstrongly that they would build anotherstadium in the city if they had to. Jesse Madi-son, executive vice president of the parkdistrict, who is responsible for Soldier Fieldin addition to the city's golf courses, parksand gardens, took the threat seriously andassigned the project to Director of Land-scaping Ira Berk. Berk called in architectBob Megquir and Mrock from his staff andhired Bossard as a consultant.

AstroTurf was first installed in Soldier Fieldin 1971 when the Bears moved over from

Wrigley Field. The original carpet wasreplaced in 1979 before Monsanto deve-loped AstroTurf 8, a drain-through combi-nation of porous carpet, pad and asphaltbase. Rain and melting snow had to run offthe field to collector drains located on theperimeter.

Being a public agency, the Chicago ParkDistrict had to establish specifications andtake bids from all qualified contractors. Ittook nearly a year to identify all the changesthat needed to be made at Soldier Field andto hammer out the specifications. The bid-ding process didn't start until this past winter,just months before the Bears' exhibitiongame.

Not to be left out, AstroTurf Industries andSportec International made their ownproposals to the park district. AstroTurf wasproposing its drain-through system andSportec its sand-filled artificial OmniTurf.The Bears, represented by Tim Lefever,made it clear at numerous hearings that theywanted a PAT System.

David Heiss, president of Turf ServicesInc. of Spring Lake, MI, the licensed PATinstaller for the region, nevertheless under-stood that artificial turf companies were for-midable competitors. He still had to win aprice battle. "We weren't just fighting for PAT,we were fighting for natural turf," statesHeiss.

One item that Heiss and PAT's Dr. Wil-liam Daniel and Laurel Meade wanted toinclude was field heating. A number of Euro-pean stadiums and Mile High Stadium inDenver, CO, have heating grids buried about

continued on page 24

Drainage/subirrigation lines are set in trenches on top of the moisture barrier.

The Battle for Natural Turfcontinued from page 22eight inches below the turf surface to warmthe soil. Electric or hot fluid systems meltsnow and keep the ground from freezing.This option would cost an estimated$150,000 to $200,000 and raise the priceof the PAT System by more than 30 per-cent, explained Meade. The combinationof heating and controlled drainage wouldprovide the ultimate in natural winter turf.

Lefever surprised the park district and thePAT team by suggesting that installationof the heating system be delayed. The heat-ing system was shelved and the bid sub-mitted without it. "I hope the heating sys-tem can be installed in the future," saysMrock.

The final hurdle Heiss had to clear wasthe lack of competition to bid against forconstructing a natural turf field to the city'sspecifications. In late February, the park dis-trict board voted to allow a single bid forthe PAT system. Heiss waited nervously formore than a month for final details to beresolved and contracts to be signed. Hewanted to give the sad ten weeks to knitwith the soil.

To complicate matters further, Pink Floydwas scheduled to perform at Soldier Fieldon May 20. Heiss was not going to risk hav-ing thousands of rock fans trample the newsad. All the drainage, irrigation and soil workwould have to be completed before the con-

cert so the sad could be laid immediatelyafter. Fortunately for Heiss, the concert wascancelled.

In April, the park district removed the oldsurface and started excavation. The finalgrade of the new field would be just threefeet above the average level of Lake Michi-gan. Park engineers decided to build a lowwall around the field to serve as a dike.

With only three months to go before thefirst game, Heiss moved his crews andequipment onto the field. The first order ofbusiness was to make the subgrade per-fectly flat. Once this was achieved, the fieldwas divided into four separate drainage sec-tions, two for the playing area and two onthe perimeter. A network of trenches weredug in each section for the perforated drainpipe. But before the pipe was installed, theentire subgrade and trenches were linedwith a plastic water barrier. The result wasa two-acre bath tub about one foot deep.

Heiss and Daniel visited area sad farmsin search of sad grown on sandy soil. Theyhad heard the drought was forcing somesad growers to cut back on water. "We hadto have healthy, established sad grown insandy soil so it would take root as fast aspossible," says Heiss. They found what theywanted 50 miles away at Huber Ranch SadNursery in Schneider, IN. It was a blend offive improved Kentucky bluegrasses growingin sandy riverbottom soil near the KankakeeRiver. "Our soil on the farm is 75 percent

Temperatures soared during the three days the sod was installed.24 sportsTURF

sand," explains Bill Huber. "We grow a lotof Penncross bentgrass sad in the sand toeliminate soil interface problems on sand-based greens."

In the fall of 1986, Huber planted part ofhis 760-acre farm with a blend of Adelphi,Baron, Glade, Parade and Rugby Kentuckybluegrasses. "We are fortunate to have twospring-fed lakes to supply our irrigation sys-tem so our sad never lacked water. WhenDave called up, I told him we had just whathe needed."

The sad part of the Soldier Field story wasstrengthened further by Jim Walsh, presi-dent of Sportsfields Inc., who Heiss hiredto lay the sad. Walsh had worked for Benand Bob Warren for eight years at WarrenTurf Nurseries. Walsh also knew chemicalsfrom two years as a professional turfrepresentative for Lebanon Chemical Co.While Heiss concentrated on constructionat Soldier Field, Walsh coordinated prepa-ration of the sad. That included applicationsof Alliete for Pythium control, Proxol for insectcontrol and Agri-Plex to provide the sad withiron and micronutrients.

Heiss, Walsh and Bossard worked closelytogether so that maintenance of the sad afterinstallation would be flawless. In the mean-time, the drain lines were being installed.They aren't just drain lines, they are two-way conduits between the field soil and awater control station. Moisture sensorsburied at various depths in each section ofthe field electronically report to a centralcontrol station. By setting moisture levelsfor specific depths, water is pumped intoor out of the field through the drain lines.This subirrigation/drainage system can suckwater out of the field as fast as rain can fallor fill it like a bathtub. By controlling the depthand amount of moisture, the sports turfmanager can put water in the root zone whilekeeping the playing surface firm and dry.

The heart of the system is a sealed con-crete tank. This air-tight tank holds 200 cubicfeet of air in the upper portion and 400 cubicfeet of water in the bottom. The main drainsare connected to the tank. Inside the tankare two four-inch submersible pumps capa-ble of expelling 700 gpm. There is also anair suction pump. The combined suction ofthe air pump and the sump pumps canremove more than 2,000 gpm from the field.

As Heiss arranged for delivery of morethan 8,000 tons of sand, Mueller Mistinstalled the Taro irrigation system. Surfaceirrigation was not part of the original PATSystem design. Subirrigation was the salesource of water when the system was firstcreated more than 20 years ago. Butexperience has shown Daniel and Meadethat it can save the day on many occasions.Sports turf managers are accustomed to sur-face irrigation and a sand field can be verythirsty when the pumps are down. As thingsturned out, there wouldn't have been naturalturf in Soldier Field this month if it weren'tfor the Taro system. The pumps were notup and running until the end of July.

Access to the stadium added to the pres-sure of the job. Four out of six lanes on the

Dan Ryan Expressway were closed for con-struction. The trucks had to use LakeshoreDrive and they weren't allowed on thatbetween 6 am and 3 pm. Noise ordinancesprevented nightime delivers to narrow thewindow even further. When the trucks didarrive they could not fit through the one tun-nel to the field. Smaller shuttle trucks hadto carry the sand from the large trucks ontothe field.

Another challenge was only union crewscould work at the stadium. Heiss wasn'tabout to risk delays caused by union unrest.Walsh contacted Tom Koch of Koch & Son,a Chicago landscape contractor whoprovided more than 15 union laborers at crit-ical times.

By the middle of June, the sand was inplace. Peat and calcined clay (Turface) wereworked into the top few inches of sand. Thesurface was fine-graded to be as flat as apool table. Four two-inch hoses were usedto wet down the soil in preparation for deliv-ery of the sod.

At 11 pm on Sunday, June 19, the sodharvesters at Huber Ranch were fired upand started cutting the Kentucky bluegrasswith a third of an inch of soil. By 2:30 am,the trucks were loaded and on their way toChicago 50 miles away.

Walsh and his crew were there at thestadium when the trucks started arriving.Again, the trucks could not fit through thetunnel so each pallet of sod was carried onto

Laurel Meade, Roger Bossard and DavidHeiss (I. to r.),

the field by forklifts with turf tires. Palletswere spotted at locations marked by Walsh.Starting on a line down the center of thefield the crew began to lay the sod. Theywere followed closely by one person witha roller and another with a hose. As eachsection was finished, the Toro 640 headswere installed and the particular stationswere turned on.

The first day Walsh and his crew laid 3,075square yards of sod. The temperaturesoared to 104 degrees, but there was nostopping. The procedure was repeated thenext day with 4,200 square yards. "The guyscould see the field taking shape with eachroll," recalls Walsh. "They weren't used tothat kind of heat, but they worked fast and

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really watched the seams."Each night Huber would cut the sod and

deliver it to the stadium before dawn. Asthe sun rose the pallets were already in posi-tion on the field. On the third day the remain-ing 3,000 yards were laid. Looking over thecompleted field, the exhausted crew knewthey had accomplished something spectacu-lar. The brilliant green surface was a starkcontrast to the faded artificial surface of afew weeks before. The stadium itself wasbrighter with blue, yellow and orange seats,new paint and 50 new loges on the Southend. The new color highlighted the Greciancolumns atop the stands on both sides ofthe field. "You wouldn't think this stadiumwas built back in the '30s," remarked Meade.

The temperature still hovered in the '90s.Bossard, Walsh and Heiss were concernedthat the heat would shock the turf and keepit from rooting as rapidly as possible. "Onceturf starts wilting and turning blue it takessix to eight days just to get it going again,"Bossard pointed out. "We couldn't affordthat. We didn't have any choice. We hadto keep the water on. The local mediajumped on us because we were irrigatingevery day when everybody else in the citywas under a water ban."

For the next three weeks Bossardchecked the root depth of the field nearlyevery day. "The goal was to get the feederroots down at least three inches and the

continued on page 26

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The Battle for Natural Turfcontinued from page 25

hair roots spread throughout the top inch,"said Bossard. He applied Scotts High K andFairway fertilizers. He also sprayed Agriplexevery week. "Normally you wouldn't pushturf this hard, especially in the heat, but wehad no choice," Bossard said. "We hadAliette and Subdue ready to go at the firstsign of Pythium, but the wind off the lakemust have kept humidity down."

By mid-July, Bossard decided it was timeto stop babying the turf. He started cuttingback the irrigation cycles while watching theturf for signs of wilt. The roots had to searchdeeper for water. This process would havebeen easier with the subirrigation system,but work on the water pit and pumping sta-tion was not yet completed.

Ten days later, the field was aerified tocreate channels in the soil for root penetra-tion, something not generally recommendedin hot weather. Sixty-five tons of sand andcalcined clay were topdressed over the sod

and brushed into the core holes. "Basically,the topdressing stabilizes the sod by mak-ing it heavier," stated Bossard. "It also fillsin any seams or spots that settled. The clayparticles absorb their weight in water andhold it longer than straight sand does."

There were many other details to take careof before the Bears and the Dolphins couldplay on August 6. The field had to be sur-veyed from scratch. Templates for the teamlogos, NFL symbol and numbers had to beordered. Turf paint in all the special teamcolors and white had to be ordered. Andthe park district crew had to be trained topaint natural turf as opposed to artificial.

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In the meantime, Elliott flew to Chicagoto survey the field. As soon as the locationsof the goal posts were spotted, footers wereinstalled. The end zones, yard lines, hashmarks and sidelines were carefully set. OnJuly 22, the Kentucky bluegrass turf at Sold-ier Field became the canvas for Elliott andthe park district crew. The field was paintedas if the opening game was the next day.

"It's hard to describe how I felt when thepainters finished," says Heiss. "I walked wayup into the seats and just stared at the fieldfor ten minutes. From the top row you lookone way and see the Chicago skyline. Lookthe other way and you see the marina andthe runway at Meigs Field. Alii could thinkof was what a great stadium Soldier Fieldis ... AND now it's natural turf!"

After 22 years at Comiskey Park, Bos-sard strongly believes that natural turf is thebest surface for outdoor stadiums. "I'vemanaged both in my time (Comiskey hadartificial turf from 1968 to 1975) and naturalturf is the only way to go." The new stadiumto be built next to Comiskey for the WhiteSox will also be natural turf.

Two big challenges remain for theChicago Park District. The first is to hire ahead groundskeeper that understands thePAT System. The city is lucky to have Bos-sard and Mrock nearby for their advice. "Thebiggest problem we have today with PATfields," says Meade, "is maintenance afterinstallation. Stadium owners have to real-ize that maintenance is no simple matter.We're not just talking about mowing andmarking the field. We're talking about a sandrootzone with a sophisticated drainage andirrigation system. These things requireskilled, experienced management. To getsomeone like that, you have to be selec-tive and pay them accordingly."

The second big challenge is field heat-ing. "Football is tougher than baseball,"explains Bossard. "Grass wants to grow dur-ing the baseball season, but doesn't dur-ing the end of football season."

"The Bears have games November 27and December 11," says Mrock. "We usedto put tarps over the AstroTurf and blow heatunder them to keep the surface from freez-ing. The same has been tried successfullyon natural turf. Eventually, all stadiumslocated in the North will have to addressfield heating. It has to be a lot cheaper thanbuilding domed stadiums." At the presenttime, Mile High Stadium in Denver is theonly PAT field with a heating system.

"We learn something new with each instal-lation," says Dr. Bill Daniel, who inventedthe system at Purdue University. "The morefields we install, the more we learn. We knowthat adequate infiltration, percolation andsubdrainage along with moisture control,make it possible to provide and maintaina durable turfgrass cover that allows max-imum use. That's the real name of the gametoday and that is what will preserve naturalturf as the ultimate sports surface in thefuture." ~