Schools with artificial turf

[SWE'98]

The subject of artificial turfs was just broached in another topic. I certainly understand the pros and cons of it. Pros are safety from muddy fields, a pristine field all year, less maintenance, etc. Cons are costs that many counties can't afford, losing the feel of "real, dirty football, and not being able to dress the field up (lines) for different sports. It seems that artificial turfs are plentiful in the Charlotte area and the mountains area. I am surprised that there aren't many, if any in the Greensboro, Raleigh, and Fayetteville areas, that I know of anyway. My question to you is are there any artificial turfs at schools that AREN'T considered to be Charlotte and mountain area schools? This is mainly for my education, because I don't know of any, but would love to learn if there are.

 

[BlueVols]

You can have as many sets of lines as you want. Asheville has football, soccer, and field hockey lines. All the Turf fields around here have soccer and football. I think the old field at AppState had 3 or 4 sports lines in it. If you want a clean look, there is water based paints to use for other sports but you are back to the time it takes to stripe it.

Your "con" of "old, dirty football" isn't even a consideration to school administrations. The costs are mitigated by the fact that all the mowing, seeding, and fertilizing are gone. You don't have to keep the band off of it or make the youth leagues postpone their games. Biggest problem here is practice scheduling for all the teams that want to use it.

There is a push for the Henderson Co. Schools to get it now but there is some opposition from what I understand.

 

[SWE'98]

I know you can put as many lines on it as you want, but you can't take them off. I hate seeing fields dressed for football, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, hopscotch, polo, darts, etc all at the same time. I meant making the field ready for one sport at a time. You can't to that with artificial turf, I don't think. And as far as administration not caring about dirty football, well I know that. I was more or less talking about fans/coaches not liking it because of that reason. Old school people. I also feel like if less maintenance, which I mentioned, was so much of a pro in the long run because of less cost, then they would be in many more areas. Who doesn't want to save money? But the initial cost is indeed a con. I'm sure a bunch of teams would want to use it, but what I'm really trying to get at is are there any schools that have a synthetic turf field on their campus or nearby that is the property of the school for the purpose of playing football?

 

[btango]

Big pro is the man hours saved for upkeep. Painting and mowing during season requires staff members time which is ofen limited.

 

[TGT]

Do health concerns play a part?http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-wont-say-if-artificial-turf-safe-kids-n435731

 

[BlueVols]

The paint is removable, hence the term "water based". See Seattle, see New England, see Appalachian for Pete's sake. A high school is probably not going to that expense. If you don't want to see a bunch of lines, stay out of a HS gym. Don't want those volleyball courts mucking up our pretty basketball floor.
The old Asheville Memorial stadium turf is paintable, used by the Rec department , youth league, and semi-pro, when they have a team,

A field runs about $300-400k, depending on the amount of prep and style of turf installed. Back in 2008, a school administrator told me they were spending approximately $25k+ per year on field maintenance for the grass football/soccer field at the stadium. The recommended life of an artificial surface is about 10 years so there's $250k spent on grass being maintained applied to cost there. Yes the capital outlay is pretty high, and that is why a lot of schools aren't in any hurry to lay down a rug. Check your newer built schools though. Most are including it in the planning.

The whole purpose of artificial turf is to make the field as multipurpose as possible. In the original plans for Watauga HS, there were to be two fields, soccer and football. The board cut out the soccer field and so they wound up with a combo.

Laying turf and then saving it just for football or soccer defeats the major reason for having it- to have one field everyone can use- so your premise of a single use field goes against what public schools are trying to accomplish.

 

[crestcharger02]

Makes sense to have these going forward. Just deal with the upfront costs and then save over the long haul.

 

[thekidd12]

field runs about $300-400k, depending on the amount of prep and style of turf installed. Back in 2008, a school administrator told me they were spending approximately $25k+ per year on field maintenance for the grass football/soccer field at the stadium. The recommended life of an artificial surface is about 10 years so there's $250k spent on grass being maintained applied to cost there. Yes the capital outlay is pretty high, and that is why a lot of schools aren't in any hurry to lay down a rug. Check your newer built schools though. Most are including it in the planning.

OK so if my old school math is correct in 10 years 250k would be spent on field maintenance at 2008 price. And upfront cost of a 10 year life expectancy turf is 300-400k? That's a difference of 50-150k over a 10 year period so turf would cost from 5000 to 15000 more per year to have such a field. Plus after 10 years or so you need to replace turf. I can see where this would be a hard sell to make to update an existing facility. With education system cutting costs any way they can I believe convincing a local Board of Education of such an upgrade would be difficult. Heck I have helped rebuild local middle school baseball field with my own tractor and blade because county couldn't get to it.