The crowd buzzes and white smoke fills the air as Cal Poly Football runs out of the green inflatable tunnel onto Mustang Memorial Field. Two horses make a lap around the turf as the Mustangs get ready for the game.
But hours or even days before game time, Lead Groundsworker Miguel Torres – along with his staff – readies the field for all events, whether it be football, soccer or even graduation.
Two years ago, Cal Poly renovated the old grass field into turf. According to Cal Poly administration and finance, the artificial playing surface would save approximately 2.8 million gallons of water annually.
Despite Torres and his staff not having to deal with keeping grass alive and fixing divots on the surface, there still are daily maintenance jobs to complete.
Every day, the field must be cleared of trash and leaves to allow for the groomer to flatten the black rubber pellets on the field.
“We try to groom it as often as possible,” Torres said. “We have to schedule it between football practice and soccer practice. It is kind of a tough thing to do.”
Even with the scheduling challenges, Torres says that the day-to-day aspect is easier than when it was a grass playing surface.
FieldTurf comes with pre-painted lines, which eliminates the constant need to repaint lines for each sport.
“We’d spend a whole week painting for football, now the lines are there year round,” Torres said.
The biggest job that the grounds workers have to complete is the watering of the artificial turf with fire hoses connected to the side of the stadium.
Grass has natural cooling properties that help to keep field temperatures down, but the artificial turf does not have the ability and is usually hotter than the actual air.
The trade-off that works in favor of the maintenance crew is that the field is more resistant to the elements such as heavy rain.
“The rain is actually good for the field,” Torres said. “It firms it up and the drainage is really really good.”
The grounds workers also maintain the Upper Complex Sports Fields and Doerr Family Field for intramural sports, such as soccer, flag football and ultimate frisbee, in the same manner as what Division I athletes play on every game.
Torres, who started working at Cal Poly in 2004, misses some aspects of the old Mustang Memorial Field grass but is glad that it is FieldTurf now.
“I don’t miss the maintenance,” he said.