TTA Award W inners
Congratulations to TTA’s 2013
Collegiate Sports Field of the Year
Baseball Field of the Chattanooga State Tigers By Liz Nutter, Managing Editor, Leading Edge Communications (publisher of Tennessee Turfgrass)
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aintaining the field for the Chattanooga State Community College baseball team is truly a collaborative effort — not only are the coach, players and turfgrass faculty and students involved, but also faculty and students in other college departments pitch in to assist them. Many hands may make light work, but on this field, many hands create exceptional results. For this very reason, the field was named TTA’s 2013 Collegiate Sports Field of the Year. Coordinating field-maintenance efforts is Casey Neal, instructor for the college’s Landscape and Turf Management pro-
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gram. With a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Mississippi State University, Neal was previously a landscape architect in private practice. Five years ago, just after he completed a large project, he answered a job posting for a temporary position at Chattanooga State, teaching landscaping and turfgrass for the summer term. Afterwards, he was offered the position full-time, and he has been there ever since. “Originally, the Landscape and Turf Management program included very little turfgrass instruction, and the baseball field posed the potential for us to have an out-
TENNESSEE TURFGRASS April/May 2014 Email TTA at: tnturfgrassassn@aol.com
door lab, with hands-on instruction,” Neal comments. “At the time, the coach and team were taking care of the field, but due to the team’s travel schedule, they simply weren’t able to give it the regular attention that it needed. Nor did they have a background in turfgrass. I felt that letting us help would be a win-win situation for everyone.” The field was particularly helpful for Neal’s students since they could easily see some of its problems. For instance, although the field had a decent stand of bermudagrass, the outfield had areas of high weed pressure due to soil compaction. Also, the field lacked an irrigation system, and the infield had signification lip buildup. Chattanooga State recently contracted with TruGreen for fertilization and herbicide applications. “This is something that we would eventually like to do ourselves. Hopefully, in the next year or two, we will be able to get the equipment in place to be able to handle spraying efficiently,” Neal points out. “And, when the stadium was renovated a couple of years ago, irrigation was installed at the same time.” When the students first began working on the field, they concentrated much of their efforts on cleaning up the edges of the infield and warning track.