STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Local News

• Water restrictions may become permanent
• Farmworkers’ children get chance to tackle new skill -- fishing
• Enhancing knowledge: 3 TBE teachers receive Professional Development Grants

Share and Enjoy [?]

Russell Clukey is daring people to take off their shoes and walk on Barron Collier High School’s playing field later this summer.

Clukey, the executive director of support services for the Collier County school district, wants to know if you can tell a difference between the plush, green grass that carpeted the field last year from what’s there on the night of the first football game.

He doubts you’ll be able to feel a difference, except maybe that it’s a little softer.

The Naples high school is the first of eight Collier County high schools to see a field makeover, thanks to a decision made by the Collier County school board earlier this year. The decision will allow the district to slowly begin replacing the tattered and torn natural turf with synthetic turf, beginning this year.

In May the board unanimously approved a $823,000 measure that would replace Barron Collier’s field with synthetic turf. Clukey said he expects work to begin on Barron Collier in the next few weeks, with the new field to be completely installed by the first home game.

“(Everyone) is just as excited as they can be,” said Barron Collier principal Ron Miller. “Even the band is excited. We’ve had to restrict the use of the field (in recent years) because there is just so much damage.”

While Barron Collier may be the only Collier County high school to get the synthetic turf, Clukey said he expects the board will continue to replace the remaining fields in coming years.

That’s good news to Ken Fairbanks, principal of Lely High School.

“Our fields get pretty chewed up,” he said. “They aren’t in tip top shape, because of the prolonged dry spell and water restrictions. We are hoping they’ll take a good look at us, and we’ll be close to the top of the list.”

Clukey said the decision to replace Barron’s turf was based on need after a study determined that the field needed the most work done to get it back in playable condition this season.

It costs about $900,000 over 10 years to maintain a natural turf field, Clukey said. The district estimates it will cost about $5,000 a year, or about $50,000 over 10 years, to maintain the synthetic turf.

But the synthetic turf football, soccer and lacrosse players will be competing on beginning next fall, isn’t their father’s synthetic turf.

“The technology has improved dramatically,” Clukey said. “It looks, and feels, just like grass.”

Rather than placing the synthetic turf over a concrete base, Clukey said the company creates a dirt-like base before laying the field. And while the turfs of the past have been blamed for injuries, Clukey said new technology has made it just as safe, if not safer, than the natural version.

“The old ones that used to be used caused more knee injuries than this type,” Miller said. “Football’s a violent sport, someone’s going to get hurt, but its not going to be because of the field.”

Clukey said the board had expressed some concern that synthetic turf wouldn’t be able to hold up to the heat of the Florida sun.

According to a study published in 2002 at Brigham Young University, temperatures on the portion of the school’s practice field covered by synthetic turf were about 37 degrees higher than asphalt and more than 85 degrees higher than the natural turf. At the time school officials found that irrigating the turf would cool it, but only for a short period of time before the temperature would dramatically increase.

Since the study, Clukey said the company has come up with a way that will keep the turf cool under the sun.

“The turf has changed since then,” he said. “It doesn’t take as much ultraviolet rays in as it used to.”

The company, Field Turf, has recommended that schools can lower the temperature of the turf by 30 degrees by watering it for seven minutes, Clukey said. An irrigation system will be installed at the same time as the turf, and the district will sent up an automated system to cool down the field during the non-rainy season.

“The district is doing what they can to prevent any injuries,” Fairbanks said. “I don’t foresee any additional injuries.”

Lely athletes will have to wait a year before they are able to play on the turf, Fairbanks said, since this year’s football game against Barron Collier is played at home. But Miller said he hopes community members, including student athletes, will visit the school to check out the newest addition.

“We are thrilled that (the district) is going to do this with all of the schools,” he said. “We just think it’s great.”