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Hidden heroes: Meet the crew behind MSU’s athletic fields By Sam Sklar ssklar@statenews.com Tucked under the confines of the western bleachers of Spartan Stadium hides a room the size of a master bedroom. A bank of green lockers with name plates line the left hand wall. A large square table centers the room and is surrounded by green roller chairs. Head athletic turf manager at Michigan State University Andy Flynn describes the room as “chaotic” on game days as other event staff rendezvous at the grounds crew office. Flynn doesn’t have his own private office with a fancy desk and a giant window. Instead, he’s tucked up against the wall adjacent to the doorway. But on a day like today, it’s extremely quiet. East Lansing had just been dumped with rain overnight into the morning. Without any MSU teams hosting a home game for the weekend, Flynn and his staff of four full-time employees get to leave early for the weekend. The team oversees all the turfgrass surfaces on campus, but Spartan Stadium’s central location puts their office in the underbelly of the stadium. The last month, though, has been busy, with numerous teams transitioning to the outdoors. The same goes for sharpening up the field at Spartan Stadium ahead of the Spartan Football Kickoff on April 15. Flynn said it’s all about prepping and waiting for Mother Nature to run her course. “Mother Nature is the ultimate variable,” Flynn said. Flynn is originally from Buchanan, a town of just under 5,000 people in the southwest corner of Michigan. He attended Central Michigan University, but wasn’t sure what he wanted to study at first. Flynn eventually found a book that highlighted different careers that exist in
sports and realized turfgrass management was a possibility. Then he remembered his childhood. Flynn’s parents didn’t even have to ask him to mow the lawn. He loved doing it so much, he would go out on his own and tend to the lawn. “I’d go buy some fertilizer with my parents’ money and fertilize the lawn and try to make it look nicer than the neighbors,” Flynn said. To pursue his newfound goal, he transferred to MSU and worked at the Forest Akers Golf Course before being hired at the university fulltime upon graduating. From a broad scope, Flynn’s tasks depend on the season and the day-to-day schedule. He oversees all of the turfgrass at the varsity athletic fields, with he and his coworkers bouncing around campus from field to field. “That’s one of the parts I love about my job, is that I have flexibility to be able to just jump in and do things if we need help,” Flynn said. “If we need someone to sit on a mower, if we need someone to dig a hole or whatever, I can jump in and do it.” And it’s not just the care done on Spartan Stadium. The baseball and softball teams start playing home games in March, plus the men’s and women’s soccer teams like to practice outside when the weather allows. Perhaps the football team wants to hold an outdoor spring practice on occasion. That means all of the outdoor facilities need to be in tip-top shape for the smoothest and, most importantly, safest game or practice possible. “It’s kind of like every field too, all at the same time, because everyone’s always going,” Flynn said. On a yearly basis, there’s no telling how much work will be able to be done on Spartan Stadium
Groundskeepers at the end of their shift, in their locker room under Spartan Stadium on March 31, 2023. Photo by Henry Szymecko
before MSU’s spring game. Flynn said it depends on when the growing season begins. There’s a chance the field is yellow, or some sort of yellow-green shade when MSU takes the field. What is certain, Flynn said, is that the field will have a fresh coat of paint, just like what is seen on a typical fall Saturday. “Ideally, that grass is green for the spring game, but we might not get there,” Flynn said. Moisture is one of the biggest factors that’s monitored by the groundskeepers. Spartan Stadium is equipped with eight sensors buried in the field that allows Flynn to measure the exact amount of water in the soil. From there, they can mathematically determine how much the field needs to be watered, if it all. “That field plays its best if we can control the moisture,” Flynn said. During the June recruiting period, the field is painted every single weekend to mimic as much as possible what Spartan Stadium looks like on game day. Last year that also meant Michigan State head football coach Mel Tucker and the football team bringing luxury vehicles onto the field for photoshoots with recruits. Flynn said these shoots weren’t the best for the grass, but strong
communication and little rain meant there wasn’t any notable damage. “I’m a team player and I want to make sure that they can do their jobs and whatever that may be,” Flynn said. “I want to make sure recruits are coming in and we need to park some cars down here, then let’s do it.” Nuances like that all tie back to the necessity of planning. Veterans like Flynn and fellow groundskeeper Jared Knoodle have seen just about it all, but having answers to problems is, at times, the root of the job. “A lot of times we say, ‘Have a plan for a plan,’ which seems ridiculous, but that’s one of the approaches that we have to have,” Flynn said. Groundskeeping is one of those professions that tends to only get highlighted when things go wrong; rarely does a T.V. broadcast tout about superb field conditions. However, the Michigan State grounds crew takes pride in what they do and wins for the Spartans on the field are also wins for them too. “My motto is, I don’t want anybody to know that I’m there,” Knoodle said. “Because if nobody knows that I’m there or doing anything, then everything’s going right.”
The story of the ‘Resilient Oak’: MSU’s oldest tree
The oldest tree on MSU’s campus on a sunny spring day on April 6, 2023. The tree, a white oak that survived a damaging 2016 storm, is estimated to be around 375 to 500 years old. Photo by Jack Armstrong
By Ellie Young eyoung@statenews.com What is now a severed trunk on the northeast corner of the Michigan State University Museum was once a giant, flourishing white oak tree — a “quercus alba” to be exact. 4
The Resilient Oak Tree, thought to be the oldest tree on campus, has lived an estimated 375 to 400 years. Although it has taken a series of losses in its lifetime, it is still standing and thriving today. Following a terrible thunderstorm one July evening
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in 2016, now-retired professor of plant biology and curator of the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden Frank Telewski discovered the giant remains of what had been blown off of the Resilient Oak’s trunk. He sanded down a sample to count its rings. Not only did he discover that
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the tree has stood there since before campus was established, but he also found evidence of trials the Resilient Oak had been through. MSU plant recorder Carolyn Miller said there were pieces of metal found sticking out of the trunk, indicating it was one of many trees cut by MSU when it was first established in an effort to make the trees more bushy. Unfortunately, cutting the trees at their apical meristem, or parts where sprouts form, left the trees vulnerable because rain water could easily seep into the trunk and rot it out. To combat this, MSU placed metal caps on the trees. Many trees didn’t survive, Miller said, but the Resilient Oak made it through. In a more traumatic event, the Resilient Oak weathered a storm in 2016 after taking heavy damage. “It loses its leaves every fall, it pushes out new leaves every spring and summer and it’s still going,” Miller said. “It really is pretty remarkable to see.”
College of Arts and Letters Dean Chris Long’s office overlooks the tree and he said he was inspired by its perseverance. To reflect this, he created the name “Resilient Oak.” “That image of the tree that had suffered during a storm so badly and yet still stands and still lives and still grows and, now we see seven years later, still really thrives, is a wonderful metaphor for resilience,” Long said. Part of the Resilient Oak’s beauty is that it’s older than MSU, Long said. It serves as a powerful reminder that you can withstand some challenges and suffering and still go on and thrive. “It grew up with MSU, and it also suffered as MSU has suffered, and yet it still persists,” Long said. Generally, learning is a process that requires failure and the ability to be resilient through that and find ways to grow. Long said the Resilient Oak’s shedding each fall is a vital piece of its symbolism —
as it is withering, yet persistent. The Resilient Oak also represents MSU with its current survival mechanism. Long said the only reason the tree still thrives is because it is interconnected with its surrounding trees by a network of roots. “When there is a tree in distress in the system, there is a mechanism by which some nutrients are provided from other trees to support the tree in distress,” Long said. “There’s an important metaphor there, around our network of relationships and community that we have here at MSU.” Long said it is critically important to protect the old trees on campus because each one has a story to tell and their history is a vital part of campus. “They are some of the most precious beings on our campus,” Long said. “Not only do they provide us with oxygen to breathe … but they also stand as a symbol of the enduring power of the campus and the enduring importance of education.”