Charger football’s 2016 season was its final with the GLIAC, and it may be its final with Muddy Water Stadium’s synthetic turf field.
This season marks the field’s tenth year, the amount of time the field was expected to last, Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé said. During the summer, annual inspectors of the facility flagged it as in need of replacement within the next coupl e years. Over time, the turf field compresses less, hardening the ground and increasing the likelihood of injuries.
“It still plays well, but I think if we tried to go another year, we would regret it,” Péwé said.
Activity on the field, as well as exposure to sunlight and heat, hardens the synthetic grass and breaks down the material. To compensate, more rubber is added. Now the pieces of recycled tries fills a majority of the field, Péwé said.
“We expected it to last eight to 10 years,” Péwé said. “It gets used all the time, so we’re getting a great return on investment.”
Ideally, the college would replace the turf this summer, and it is already in discussion about funding the project, Péwé said. In 2006, the college paid about $600,000 for its field made of ambient ground rubber and washed silica sand from ProGrass LLC, and Péwé said he is hoping to spend less than that.
“It’s gotten more competitive, since then,” Péwé said.
Péwé said the college has liked working with ProGrass. It is, however, trying to purchase the new field at the best possible price. That partially depends on the type of field the college chooses.
Over the past decade, technology has expanded the options of turf material, including more eco-friendly options and those that don’t use crumb rubber in synthetic turf after the rise of health questions concerning potentially harmful elements like benzene, mercury, arsenic, and lead were sometimes found in it.
New technology has especially benefited baseball and soccer fields, Athletic Director Don Brubacher said, but the synthetic turf on Hillsdale’s field remains the best available for football, he said, though fill-in materials have changed somewhat. Some fields are also now putting pads underneath the layers of turf, rubber, and sand to give the field more bounce to protect from injury and increase the facility’s longevity.
“I think there are better products than there were, and we’ll look into them,” Péwé said.
Otterbein added that the job done by whoever installs the field also contributes to the quality of the field.
Only the top of the field, however, is being replaced. The base and drainage, which continue to work well, will remain, Péwé said.
The Ken Herrick Outdoor Track surrounding the football field is also getting older. It was installed about 17 years ago, and the college has looked at replacing that, as well, as its surface hardens. It recently repaired asphalt spots underneath certain sections of the mondo-surface track.
“That should buy us some time,” Péwé said.
Péwé said the college is discussing moving the outdoor track to where the Simpson Baseball Field is to give the football field more space to play soccer and rugby. Baseball would then go to Hayden Park. The college is also looking into creating a building with wall-to-wall turf where the old tennis courts sit. It would allow sports teams to practice inside during the winter and be available for recreational use.
In the past, Hillsdale was a leader in new advances of field technology. In 1980, it was one of the first colleges in Michigan to put AstroTurf, essentially carpet, on an outdoor field. Injuries increased substantially, because it didn’t have the “give” of normal grass, Péwé said.
“Players would get burns,” Péwé said. “They would get turf toe, where it goes into the thick carpet, and it dislocates, and it’s hard to heal.”
Around 2000, the college removed the AstroTurf and grew a special type of developed grass that wouldn’t freeze during the winter months. It, however, required a lot of maintenance, frequent mowing, and one whole grounds worker to care for it.
“You had to baby it,” Péwé said. “You could only play on it six times a year, so they hardly practiced on it.”
But all the care lead to another type of the grass growing, creating patches of weaker material. The college replaced the field, but it happened again. That’s when it got the synthetic turf field.
It has fared well, Péwé said. The turf decreased the number of injuries, increased speed, and was usable for football, other sports, and general student use.
Otterbein said of the football fields on which the Chargers have played, Hillsdale’s is his favorite.
“A lot of the fields have a sliding surface,” Otterbein said. “This one has good grip. It’s good for playing the game.”
