Op-Ed: Glen Lake School Board should choose grass over turf field
By Timothy Young
Op-Ed contributor
See related story in our June 1 edition.
The Glen Lake School Board has a tough decision to make. The current stadium grass was improperly installed 20 years ago, causing potential injuries to athletes and limiting usage due to lack of drainage. Options on the table for the June 12 meeting are essentially to properly install new grass or go with artificial turf.
On most counts the playing field is pretty level. While artificial turf has a reputation as an injury nightmare and is unpopular among the majority of professional soccer and NFL athletes, most independent research now considers artificial turf having caught up to grass on the safety side. Both require about the same amount of money and technical savvy to maintain, according to MSU’s turf manager and local consultants. Both use herbicides and other chemicals that have environmental impacts. Artificial turf has the advantage of adding more playing days in the Spring and Fall, but the school has no data on how many days they loose due to turf conditions.
Where artificial turf can’t compete is on cost. Proper installation of a grass field is estimated to come in around $400,000. The low bid for artificial turf came in around $850,000. Properly installed and maintained, grass will never need replacing. Properly installed and maintained, artificial turf needs replacing approximately every 10 years at an estimated cost of $500,000. There’s the rub. A vote for artificial turf will strap Glen Lake Schools with a $50,000 per year capital cost in perpetuity.
Perhaps more importantly, and lost in the debate of grass stains vs rug burns, is the lost opportunity cost of this expenditure. Considering that last year the school spent $1.6 million on sports facility upgrades (including a new practice field that will take some pressure off the stadium grass) and has more slated (new locker rooms for soccer, and football fields, baseball field upgrades, new stands, press box and concessions, new track, new tennis courts), it’s certainly fair to take a deeper look at the balance between academic expenditures, which benefit every student, and those allocated towards sports. Is this large an expenditure for such a small portion of our overall sports infrastructure really going to help our student soar and prepare them for the future?
As a parent of student athletes, including a son going out for football this year, I think it’s not only fiscally prudent, but wiser to fix the grass field and move forward some of the other sports facility infrastructure projects that are needed. And on the academic side the considerable saving by choosing grass is certainly enough to endow a fund to subsidize our graduates first year of college or vocational school. Our school board had exhibited impressive leadership when upgrading school facilities. On June 12, I’d ask them to be visionaries.
