Cover Story

Farewell, Friend: Celebrating the Retirement of Dr. Tom Samples

By Julie Holt

Dr. Tom Samples, UT Turfgrass Extension Specialist, greets everyone as a friend – even if he hasn’t met them yet. For this reason and many others, he has earned quite a reputation in Tennessee and beyond as a titan in the turf industry. It won’t take you long to find a turfgrass manager in Tennessee who says Dr. Samples’ knowledge and commitment has saved their hide or their grass a time or two.

In his position as Extension Specialist, Dr. Samples has the unique task of understanding the challenges of turf professionals across the state, and that is no small feat. From the flat river bottoms of West Tennessee to the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee and the rocky soil of the East Tennessee transition zone, there’s a problem for every solution in Tennessee turf.

The very art of understanding this variance in conditions is a chapter on it’s own, but what Dr. Samples has brought to the game is an open mind and a joy for learning from and helping individuals and companies who face the many hurdles to growing and managing turfgrass.

THE ROUNDABOUT PATH TO TURFGRASS

Dr. Samples began his work at UT in November of 1985. He shared his education journey with us in a recent interview. “I majored in agronomy crops at Ohio State. My dad was a farm manager in Ohio, and late in my high school career, I decided I really liked the farm thing, and I really would enjoy farming, but we didn’t own any land. So maybe rather than farm, I just need to find a job or vocation where I could help farmers. I majored in Agronomy Crops at Ohio State. My first job after graduating was for a farm cooperative in middle Ohio, in the Columbus area. To be brutally honest, I was not a great manager. But while I was there, I got very interested in lawn care products. I got to befriend a lot of those folks that were out there making lawn applications, so I gained their confidence, for some strange reason, and I got really interested in the products and the product lines.”

A move to Oklahoma to be closer to family was where he pursued his Master’s Degree, and also where his wife Wanda got her Master’s in Library Science. “I had no earthly idea that I would ever have a Ph.D.,” he shared, “but I just fell in love with the research and the people of Oklahoma. They’re so social and they kind of take care of their own. Once I started to work on my Ph.D., I thought, I’m not sure I want to do this grant writing and research thing as much as I want to do outreach. I asked my major advisor, Dr. Doug Brede, ‘Do you think I could survive as an extension person?’ He kind of embraced that, so he made sure I talked a lot at meetings.”

After graduating from Oklahoma State, Dr. Samples had two opportunities (Tennessee and Oklahoma), and having visited his grandparents many summers near Morristown, returning to Tennessee felt like a natural choice.

BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS TURF PROGRAM

In the 37 years since Dr. Samples accepted the position at UT, a lot has changed – not just the plants, products and equipment used, but also the growth of the turfgrass science staff within the university.

“When I first got here, Dr. Lloyd Callahan was doing it all. He taught, he was doing fungicide trials, he had research greens that, before I got here in 1985, he’d lost those greens because UT decided to build a vet med school. Then my position was created not by University of Tennessee actions, but by the actions of the turfgrass industry, specifically Mr. Buck Allison. He was the former commissioner of the highway department, I believe. Mike Allison, his son, was in the sod business in Nashville.

“I got here in 1985, and then UT made one of the finest hires they’ve ever made in John Sorochan. One thing we loved about John is what you see is what you get, and one thing I particularly liked was sometimes when someone comes into a teaching and research position like he did, the focus is initially on what I’m going to do in the research arena. What John did, he recognized the value of our geographic location here in Tennessee, we’re in the northern transition zone. His goal was to expand the turfgrass curriculum, attract students, and then while he was doing that, to also decide what research really needed to be done. I’ll never forget, we have a lunch place called Mabel’s on campus, and John and I were at Mabel’s one day. John looked at me and said, ‘It’s going to be fun to see how far we can take this program.’

“I was the outreach guy. I really wanted to take the research to the industry, and I wanted to take what I saw and learned from the industry professionals, what needs to be studied, back to John. It was a nice arrangement, and then John thinks big picture. I think within the boundaries of Tennessee. John thinks globally, so I think our personalities complement one another. He and I hammered every time we saw a dean, we’d explain, ‘Hey, the turfgrass program at Tennessee could be this and one reason is, geographic location – transition zone, transition zone, transition zone.’ And finally, there was a great leader on the ag campus, his name was Dr. Joe DiPietro, and Joe listened to us. He made sure that Brandon Horvath was hired to do the teaching, but in between that time, Jim Brosnan came on board. I consider Dr. Sorochan, Dr. Horvath and Dr. Brosnan, in addition to being premiere researchers and instructors and extension people and communicators, they are like brothers to me. So that’s how this thing evolved. In their own ways, they’ve all gained national and international recognition. And then I just kind of kept plowing along, but it’s been a heck of a good ride!”

THE ESSENCE OF EXTENSION

Dr. Samples is the first and loudest voice in appreciating the contributions of professionals in the field – the ones who are up with the sun mowing, seeding, spraying and maintaining the plants he’s dedicated a career to studying. A major part of his success has been in the relationships he’s built in his decades of service to the industry. He’s well known for showing up and really hearing the day-to-day challenges of turfgrass managers in the field. Bridging the gap between the hands-on work and the research and trials conducted by the University, Extension is essential to the continued growth and innovation that sustains the turf industry.

“One thing I owe the industry so much is they were willing to share with me. Here I’m from ‘THE University’, I would tell them, ‘Tell me how this works. Why do you do it this way?’ Because I had not been out on the golf courses and dealt with traffic. We work with plots, but when you have 50,000 rounds of golf a year on a golf green that’s 5,500 square feet, there are issues that are going to come up. So it’s just such a challenge. Same with the sports turfs. I’ve worked some with bermudagrass, not much at all with overseeding. We go out to the football coaches and you’ve got a high school that’s got a very limited budget that the soccer coach wants to play on the field in the spring and the football coach wants to protect the field so that he’s got a safe field in the fall. It’s basically learning, and a lot of it was not just learning the ins and outs of the industry, but learning how to listen. I think that’s really helped me over my career. The thing that I always keep in mind—what that individual does on a daily basis dictates whether he or she is employed.”

While he admits prophecy might not be his gift, Dr. Samples will pontificate on what he hopes the future holds for his position on the turf team and his friends in the industry.

“With the economics as they are right now, we feel very fortunate in the Plant Sciences Department to be able to fill a position such as mine. Whenever anyone leaves, that’s an opportunity for the University to make a change in terms of what direction that may need to take. So sometimes a position that is closed as a result of retirement, there’s no guarantee that it will be filled. I’m so happy that’s not going to happen in the case of the Turf Extension position. I can almost guarantee you that it’s going to change. This is what’s interesting, at a university, we think in terms of research, extension and teaching. But the turf team, we all share in that.

“I love the diversity, I’ve met people here at UT from Iraq, India, the Philippines, from all over the world and that’s a lot of fun just to get to know those cultures and be introduced to some of the cultural differences. I think that’s what will continue to make us stronger is to identify people that we want to work with that have a skillset that will let us advance a new technology. Discovery – when you think of a university, I think of discovery, that’s the fun part. Something that’s brand new. Conceptually, if we know this is working on a small scale, how do we get it to a golf course with 160 acres? Who would have thought that – like the drone, this unmanned, aerial vehicle—that we could use that to identify areas on the golf course that we have an irrigation leak? Or even satellite-aided fertilization. Think about these things that have occurred. I would have never thought that I’m going to be able, in the year 2022, to go online and get a virtual tour of a golf course, by hole, and never have played it. I don’t know where the next major advancement’s going to be, but hopefully it’s going to be as a result of communications from the industry professionals in terms of what we need or somebody saying, ‘You know what, if we could adapt…’ Sometimes the nice thing is, we have the opportunity to interact with engineers, medical professionals. Dr. Sorochan’s work with the Center for Athletic Field Safety and Dr. Dickson’s work – they’re working with physicists, with people that know bones and structure and skeletons and forces. That’s where I think we have an advantage as a university is to reach across out of the office, maybe even across campuses or across states to identify people that have a common interest and can help advance some level of technology or some aspect of safety or something that’s of value to the population across the US.

“What I really hope is the university will continue to be in a position to be responsive to the industry. I’m prejudicial, but I work with what I consider to be the best industry in Tennessee, but the reality is I think it’s all about communication, but then also it’s about funding. In order to make something happen, you have to be able to promote it.

REFLECTIONS ON A JOB WELL DONE

Dr. Samples is much too humble to reflect too much on the influence he’s had on so many individuals over a long career, but you don’t have to look too far to see the ripples his work has created near and far. TTA’s highest honor each year, The Tom Samples Professional of the Year Award, is bestowed at the annual conference each year, honoring an individual who has exemplified the spirit of service and diligence its namesake has embodied.

True to his selfless nature, Dr. Samples shares his proudest accomplishement. “The reality is the best thing that ever happened to me was my wife and my kids. I rarely speak about my family, but that’s really what I’m proudest of. There were times when – and I’m not sad about it because it was part of the job -- but I was writing publications at three in the morning on a Saturday morning. Because I wanted to spend quality time with the kids, but I had to produce to be able to stay employed. It’s just this thing called tenure and tenure track and advancing and representing the university. So it sounds corny, but they’re what I’m most proud of, my family.”

When the topic turned to retirement plans, he seemed more uncertain of the exact plan, but it won’t surprise his friends to hear that he has some rather thrilling items on his list.

“I’ve got so many things I have to do in terms of – people say it’s the ‘honey-do’ list – no, it’s my list as well! There’s so many – paint some rooms, enclose a garage – so many things I want to do, but I have to learn.

My first week I’m going to do some serious fishing, probably from the bank. I want to go to Huntsville and do some strange things—I remember taking the kids to the Aerospace museum in Huntsville – don’t they still have a weightless room? I want to be weightless. And believe it or not, I want to jump out of a plane with a parachute buddy.

Then I’ve got a great friend who flies air balloons, so I’m going up with him. I’m going to do some crazy stuff. I’ve had a great life, if I have an accident, so be it. I don’t recover as well as I used to, but I want to do the crazy stuff. I want to do some things that my Dean might not appreciate me doing. ‘Tom, you’re not representing the University of Tennessee.’ No, Dean, I’m not! I’m jumping out of this perfectly good airplane. I want to fly in a glider. I’m free!”

FROM THE FIRST DAY TO THE LAST

“One of the weirdest things starting your career – you’ve been a lowly graduate student, you’ve been writing on a dissertation, they’ve been editing, they say you can’t write, they go through a thesis defense or a dissertation defense and they make you feel like you don’t know anything. Because it’s part of the process. So day one, I’m at the University of Tennessee. I don’t have an assigned office yet, so I’m in behind a common area where I have a phone and I’ve got one of these old Radio Shack SR80 printers, and every time it starts to print, it sounds like a jet warming up. It was huge. I get my first call – ‘Doctor Samples you have a call.’ The first time I was called Dr. Samples, it’s like, ‘wait a minute, I think they mean ME.’ That’s now naïve I was. It’s been one fun ride, I’ve had a ball.”

FRANK TURNER

2021 Tom Samples Professional of the Year Award Recipient

“Dr. Tom Samples’ position, Turfgrass Extension Specialist, at the University of Tennessee, was the direct results of efforts by the TTA Board of Directors and members. Prior to Dr. Samples’ arrival at UT, Dr. Lloyd Callahan was the lone professor in turfgrass management. He was responsible for teaching, research, and extension. In 1984, the TTA made a concerted effort to secure funding for additional staff to support Dr. Callahan and the turfgrass industry in Tennessee. With the help of TTA President, Mike Allison, and his father, Buck Allison, the TTA lobbied the state legislature to provide funding for a Turfgrass Extension Specialist and a Turfgrass Research Assistant at the University of Tennessee. In 1985, the state legislature passed a bill that funded those positions, and the rest is history.

I believe that to be the single greatest accomplishment of the TTA. It was the beginning of what has now become one of the finest turfgrass departments in the country. Dr. Samples has certainly left his mark on the turfgrass industry in Tennessee. He will be remembered for his knowledge, expertise, and most importantly, his friendship.”

May 2016, when Dr. Samples, Dr. Sorochan, and Frank Turner presented Dr. Callahan an award from the TTA for his lifetime of service to the turfgrass industry.

JULIE HOLT

Managing Editor, Tennessee Turfgrass Magazine

“I met Dr. Samples at a conference about six months after I’d begun working in turfgrass industry marketing and publishing. I still didn’t know glyphosate from goosegrass, and he greeted me as though I’d been a great addition to the club. I’ll never forget that he thanked me for “everything I’d done for the turf industry,” although I’ll admit at the time it was minimal. The encouragement and appreciation he has shown me over the past four years has been so important to me in my continued growth and confidence. I think that’s his magic – everyone who meets him feels welcome and important, and what better quality could an Extension Specialist have? To be able to walk into any situation and talk to someone, to hear and appreciate where they’re coming from is a gift, not just to that individual, but to everyone who might benefit from what he learns in those situations. Congratulations, Tom – thank you for being a friend!”

BOB McCURDY

2022 Tom Samples Professional of the Year Award Recipient

“We owe a big debt to Dr. Samples. When we started, had it not been for Tom to guide us through it, I’m not sure how far we could’ve gotten. He took us under his wing and extension has been a big benefit to us.”

To hear the full interview with Dr. Samples, visit THETURFZONE.COM or subscribe to THETURFZONE on APPLE, SPOTIFY or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks So Much My Friends. Through The Years, I’ve Learned As Much From You, As You Have From Me.

Tom