MY BELIEFS ABOUT THE USE OF TURF GRASS AT FOOTBALL STADIUMS:
The first item in this category is a letter I wrote to the Editor of the Katy Times in 2002. It is self explanatory.
Dear Editor,
If I thought it would do any good, I
would argue about the necessity of an 86 million dollar high school, but voters in this
school district only do what they’re told, so discussing issues is pointless.
I do, however, have some long time
concerns about one of the proposals for spending bond money.
Although the actual cost of the planned replacement of Astroturf is hidden in the
bond proposal by combining it with other nebulous items, it is clear that the district is
getting ready to spend another million or so putting Astroturf at Rhodes Stadium.
Was it not just last July when I read in
the Houston Chronicle a seemingly apt argument by Bill Lane,
Bill Bundy and Joe Sheffy about replacing all the hard clay football fields at each high
school with a softer turf to “insure the safety of the players”?
And was that replacement not accomplished by spending $500,000 to do so? How then
does the district justify their intent to once again lay a surface that has been all but
abandoned at other fields across America because it is a hard surface that is unsafe for
players--not to mention hotter than blazes in the summer?
As a member of the KISD school board the
last time the Astroturf was replaced, I objected strenuously about using that surface.
As the only member of the board at that time who had children who played high
school football, I knew first hand of the injuries that this surface causes those who play
on it. Anyone who watched the pre-game show
for the Texans first game recently saw how proud the team and its management were of the
“safer” grass turf at the new Reliant Stadium.
Even Texas A&M has grass now. Why then is Katy ISD going against all the research and the
tide that flows back to grass covered fields?
My argument nine years ago (and isn’t
that a rather short time for this surface to have endured?) was centered around the safety
of students playing on the Astroturf. I am
quoted in a June 9, 1993 Houston Chronicle article as saying,
“My primary concern is the safety of the students.” The article also says, “McGarr voted
against awarding the contracts, as she did in earlier action on the project.
Initially she said she favored a grass field as the least expensive and safest for
students.”
I still hold that view.
The district, at my insistence brought forth figures that showed that removing the
underlayment and replacing it with grass would cost $460,000 (which included all kinds of
inflated estimates). This would, however, have
been a one time expense. After that initial
preparation, the hiring of an employee to care for the field plus ALL expenses related to
that care would have amounted to $20,310 per year. (The district spent about $900,000
replacing the Astroturf in 1993.) Can anyone agree with me that safety and less cost are
important to the students in our district?
Well, the rest of the school board didn’t
agree with me even though I read to them at the board meeting from the December 7, 1992
Sports Illustrated whose cover piece “The Carnage Continues”
documented and showed pictures of serious, career ending injuries to NFL players over the
years from playing on Astroturf covered fields.
My additional point was that Astroturf was designed for professional athletes whose
owners also have the money to purchase much better padding, uniforms, and shoes than are
provided by KISD for their students. My notes for that meeting show that I had this to
say, “The choice to me is obvious; we’re either here at the very least to look out for the
health and well being of the students and the money of the taxpayers, or we can listen to
biased reports and vote to make it easy on the maintenance department and so that our
athletic directors can crow about their field.
I think that just because seven people made a huge mistake twelve years ago doesn’t mean
we have to keep perpetuating the problem.” I
wonder if anyone will say that at the meeting when this issue comes up again.
Of interest to parents, I think, would be
the fact that because I raised such a ruckus about this surface, the then superintendent
(Hugh Hayes) pulled it off the agenda so that it wouldn’t become a political issue in the
spring board election where two incumbents were running for re-election!
When the election was safely over, the Astroturf proposal came back.
Unfortunately for KISD students the untimely action was exacerbated by the fact
that there was a flood in Missouri that year where the Astroturf was made, and so the
project was rushed. In the rush KISD did not
have time to properly construct the underlayment, and so instead of placing a one and a
half inch cushion, which was constructed to absorb the blows and falls that players
endure, beneath the Astroturf, a five eighths inch piece of flimsy foam rubber full of
holes (for drainage) was used. I would imagine
that that’s why the life expectancy of the surface has been cut short. I still have the
samples if anyone wants to see what should have been put down and what was substituted.
(The previous surface had lasted twelve years, not just nine!)
Even with that substitution the surface was not completed in time, and Mayde Creek
High School lost its home field advantage for the first game that year (not that anyone
cares about Mayde Creek's football team and their home field advantage) and had to play
Clements at their field.
The reason that KISD endorses the
turf grass is the same one they use for building expensive high schools, and it has to do
with being shallow and caring more about how things look than about what goes on inside.
Mary McGarr
Katy ISD Board Member, 1991-1996