North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: New Grass Installed at Carter-Finley
6/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. It’s pool-table flat, drains faster than a 12-inch pipe at the bottom of a bath tub and about 25 percent under budget.
The new grass surface at Carter-Finley Stadium is nearing completion after a three-month project to remove the old-style turtleback hump in the middle of the field and replace it with a flat surface similar to those at the Dail Practice Fields adjacent to the stadium.
Four truckloads of sod from Sandhills Turf Inc. of Pine Level, N.C., arrived early Wednesday and workers began installing it in the south end zone. They slowly worked their way to midfield, one 30-inch strip of sod at a time. A seven-man crew chopped the ends of each roll, straightened the strips, watered and rolled the same kind of hybrid Bermuda grass that is used on golf courses all over the country.
In all, some 240 rolls of sod will be used to cover the 68,400 square feet of Wayne Day Field. The field will also have a synthetic buffer around the playing surface, 10 feet away from the wall surrounding the field on the sidelines and five feet away from the wall everywhere else.
The project was originally budgeted for $1 million, but through due digilence and cost-cutting measures, will cost about $750,000.
Four more loads of sod will arrive Thursday morning to finish the other half of the field. While the work is tedious and labor intensive, it’s not nearly as difficult as laying sod on a fairway or around the bunkers surrounding a golf course.
“This is just straight lines,” said Mark Harris of Sandhills Turf. “The main thing is to keep everything straight, packed tight and well-watered.”
Sandhills Turf is certainly an expert at delivering high-quality turf, which is why it supplies grass for golf courses like Pinehurst No. 2 and Myers Park Country Club in Charlotte, not to mention the turf for at least four other stadiums in the ACC.
“Part of the prerequisite is for the bid was for the same company to grow the turf, to harvest it, deliver it and install it,” said Ray Brincefield, NC State’s assistant athletics director for outdoor facilities. “That way, we have the same people handling it the whole time.”
Another part of the project was to replace the in-ground sprinkler system that kept the old field watered with six high-pressure water guns that can be aimed from the sidelines and corners of the end zone to water the field. The guns shoot water up to 200 feet each at a rate of 250 gallons per minute.
“The biggest headache we had every week before a game was making sure none of those sprinkler heads were sticking up or sunk down or tilted in any way so that no one could catch a cleat on them as they ran down the field,” Brincefield said. “Now, we don’t have to worry about that.”
The project began on April 20, two days after the Kay Yow Spring Game at Carter-Finley Stadium. The construction crew down some three-and-a-half feet at the center of the field, less around the edges. It took about three weeks to haul thousands of cubic yards of topsoil from the stadium. After installing drainage sand and gravel that met United States Golf Association specifications for golf greens, the crew spent weeks making sure the field was as level as a pool table.
The new sod will now have about six weeks to take root before the Wolfpack has its first scheduled scrimmage on the field. And it will have a busy fall, a school-record eight NC State home games, three North Carolina High School Athletics Association championship games and a U2 concert.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
