Steve T. Gorches: Time for more schools to get turf

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Updated: November 4, 2011 10:39AM

To say Chesterton was cutting it close on having its shiny new FieldTurf ready for the football home opener this evening against Munster is an understatement.

Oh yes, it’s very bright and shiny. I was almost blinded by the green with maroon and gold endzones while driving by it on Thursday afternoon.

Early in the week, if you asked Chesterton athletic director Garry Nallenweg if he would be hosting a game on Friday, his answer would have ranged from “I hope” to “Maybe” to “I don’t know.”

On Thursday, that all changed when he emphatically said, “We’re going to be ready.”

So why the drastic switch from uncertainty to optimism?

Give some of the credit to the construction workers toiling to make sure the Trojans don’t lose any home gate revenue.

“The last two nights they’ve been here until midnight,” Nallenweg said. “I’ve been shutting off the lights at midnight each day.”

And he was still in the office at 8:30 a.m. to answer my call. Give the AD credit for drinking plenty of coffee to handle that schedule.

So it’s a mini crisis averted since who knows where the game would have been played.

Would the two schools agreed to play it at Munster? How about down the street at rival Valparaiso, which is on the road this week? It’s not something Nallenweg or coach John Snyder have to worry about.

But it came darn close.

Too close for comfort.

Could the tight deadline have been averted? Maybe, though it was probably more due to Mother Nature than any human element. In fact, Mother Nature might have been lenient on the Trojans.

“We were very fortunate most storms bypassed us,” Nallenweg said. “They were working double shifts out there to get it done. This has been a herculean effort by all involved.”

The Duneland School Board approved the FieldTurf at the May meeting, so time was short from the start. It’s similar to the situation Roydon Richards and Morton went through four years ago.

As athletic director and football coach, Richards admitted it was a stressful time.

“It was three or four weeks of gut wrenching,” he said. “Our turf was supposed to be done in the middle of June, but it wasn’t done until the first week of August. We were only on it a week before our first game.”

So Richards can feel for Snyder, though a little good-natured joking has been involved.

“(Valparaiso coach) Mark Hoffman and I were laughing at Snyder looking out (at the turf) from the practice field,” Richards said.

But all’s well that ends well. Now if only more schools can figure out how much better FieldTurf is than old-fashioned grass.

Right now, nine Northwest Indiana football programs have turf — Chesterton, Portage, Valparaiso, Merrillville, Crown Point, Hobart, Munster, Morton and East Chicago, which just installed its turf this season with timing issues of its own — the Cardinals had to move their home opener to Hammond last week.

Nine schools is not enough.

Yes, it costs money, but the advantages more than outweight any initial costs.

For those not familiar with the specifications of FieldTurf, it’s made from washed silica sand and rounded cryogenic rubber. It’s a derivative of early AstroTurf, but with more give and less chance for serious injury, at least in football.

A five-year study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine stated that the rate of injury between grass and synthetic turf was close to being the same. The types of injuries were different, though. Synthetic turf resulted in more skin injuries and muscle strains while natural grass led to more concussions and ligament tears.

In 2010, an American Journal of Sports Medicine story on NCAA Division I-A football stated that in most cases games played on FieldTurf led to less injuries than games on grass.

I’ve walked on it several times and it’s softer than the grass fields at many local schools.

Soccer is another story, at least at the highest levels. Major League Soccer players have protested FieldTurf, and in some cases have either forced franchises to switch back to grass, or decided not to sign with teams because they had turf.

World-famous soccer player David Beckham has said that FieldTurf is fine for use at lower levels — he’s even endorsed it as part of a youth program sponsored by the United States Soccer Foundation.

Not every local high school plays soccer on its new synthetic football turf. Chesterton will — the first game on it will be Monday against Culver — but Valparaiso still plays its games at the Viking Soccer Arena next to Thomas Jefferson Middle School.

Back to real football, the cost is in the range of $700,000 to $800,000 with a life expectancy of eight to 10 years with normal usage. Not to sound like I have stock in FieldTurf, but the money saved easily makes up for that cost over the life of the turf. Think about the gas saved by not mowing, water saved by not worrying about grass growing and man hours saved in maintenance.

And have you seen the way some of the area’s grass field handle too much rain? Why would anybody like playing in those muddy, ugly conditions?

That’s probably blasphemy to fans of traditional grinder running teams such as Griffith and Lowell, but too bad. Turf doesn’t mean a change in philosophy is required. It’s just more logical to upgrade when technology allows.

Do schools keep using TRS-80 or Apple 2C computers? Of course not, so the football fields need the same treatment.

If urban schools such as East Chicago and Morton deem it cost-effective and advantageous to pay for FieldTurf, than every region school with a football program can do it.

Honoring veterans: Starting Saturday, Morton will be honoring veterans by helping out local American Legion posts with a portion of the ticket revenue from its five home games.

It’s called “Saturday Night Salute” and it starts with the Lowell game. Other home games this season are Hobart, Clark, Gavit and Munster.

Richards calls them “Games of Valor” as he has raised ticket prices to $7 with part of the money going to the American Legion in the opponent’s community and the rest of the surplus going to Morton’’s local Legion, Hessville Post 232.

“It gives them a little bit of a hand in our games,” Richard said. “The novelty might wear off (for the home fans), but it won’t for each opponent.”

Here’s hoping the novelty not only doesn’t wear off, but more schools hold similar functions.