North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Carter-Finley to Lose Its Crown
3/10/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. Carter-Finley Stadium is about to lose it’s “crowned” jewel: the 2-foot hump in the middle of the football field.
Beginning April 20, two days after the annual Red & White Spring Football game and former player reunion, thousands of cubic yards of dirt will be hauled out of stadium, as contractors dig down as much as two-and-a-half feet in the center of the field.
In its place, the selected contractor will essentially build a 75,000-square-foot sand-based golf green almost exactly like the ones about to open at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course on Centennial Campus, without all the undulations as the Wolfpack's new playing surface. Bids are currently under review from three prospective contractors.
“The entire field will be built to United States Golf Association specifications for new greens,” said Ray Brincefield, NC State’s assistant athletics director for outdoor facilities. “It’s the exact same drainage pipe, it’s the exact same gravel, it’s the exact same peat moss and sand mix. The USGA sets the specs for how they build well-draining greens, from the subsurface to the grass, and those are the specs we are using.”
The new field, covered with Tiftway-419 hybrid Bermuda grass, will be able to drain as much as 13 inches of rain per hour.
Third-year Wolfpack football coach Tom O’Brien has lobbied for replacing the outdated crowned field ever since he watched then-sophomore running back Jamelle Eugene step in a mush hole and fall down while attempting to run into the end zone against North Carolina two years ago.
Carter-Finley is the only field in the ACC that still has a crown. The field was built with a slight incline when the stadium opened in 1966 to help water drain from the middle of the field to the drains in the corners, with the added benefit of helping teams that ran veer-style offenses, which were popular in the 1970s.
Over the years, the crown has become more pronounced.
But the Dail Practice Fields adjacent to Carter-Finley are level, as are the fields at every other stadium where the Wolfpack plays. So, quite literally, the team has not been competing on a level playing field with its opponents.
“We go from our own practice fields, which are level, and then go play our home games on a field with a huge crown on it,” O’Brien said. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to get it done. The field is also 30-some years old. Plus, the drainage is something that is important for us, after two of our home games were affected last season by heavy rains.”
Brincefield and his staff borrowed two baseball tarps to cover the field prior to the William & Mary game, the first time in the 43-year history of the stadium that the field was covered before a game. The school then bought its own tarp to protect the field, which was covered prior to the South Florida game as well.
The long-awaited leveling is expected to cost up to $1 million, said NC State athletics director Lee Fowler. However, neither state funds nor Wolfpack Club contributions will be used for the 103-day project, which is expected to create jobs for up to 100 laborers, Fowler said.
It will be paid for from a recently approved increase in student fees, which will fund up to $12 million in renovations and improvements to various athletics facilities. Among the other projects are video boards for Reynolds Coliseum and Doak Field at Dail Park, completion of phase II of the NC State Soccer Field and Derr Track, a revamped outdoor tennis facility (new courts, lights and stands) and the laser-leveled football field.
By starting just after the spring game, the three-month field renovation will be done in plenty of time for the Sept. 3 season-opener against South Carolina. That game kicks off the busiest season in the history of Carter-Finley, which will host eight NC State home games and three North Carolina High School Athletic Association state championship games.
Brincefield said the field may show some of that wear-and-tear by the end of the season, but
“We know by the end of the season there will be some wear-and-tear, but that is what you face when you build a field for drainage,” Brincefield said. “It will be an on-going battle between the hash marks to strip off thin sod and replace it from time to time.
“That’s the same battle everyone faces with a sand-based surface. There is nothing wrong with taking off 5,000 to 10,000 square feet of sod and replacing it every spring. It gets caught up by the beginning of the season and you will never know there is any difference by the beginning of the season.”
Brincefield has worked with the school’s design and construction services team and has access to the nation’s top-ranked turfgrass management program to help overcome any challenges. The three contractors who are bidding on the project have all been pre-qualified to build the field to the desired specifications, and Brincefield is confident that the Wolfpack will be playing on one of the nation’s finest surfaces this fall.
“At a school like NC State, the premier field on our campus should be built the premier way,” Brincefield said.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
