Turf Wars: O'Gorman enters the fray
Sure, anyone who drove past 41st Street and Kiwanis this summer saw
bulldozers and dump trucks. But that was for an overall renovation of
O'Gorman High School that approaches $50 million - presumably for air
conditioning and fresh chalkboards.
That education stuff is fine, in small doses. But as a sports guy with
full-out fall fever, I was more interested in football.
Was McEneaney Field really getting FieldTurf and a video scoreboard,
all surrounded by a new eight-lane track? Or was this another of Steve
Kueter's playful exaggerations, like when he says Spearfish has "more
outside speed than most NFL teams."
Turns out the O'Gorman athletic director and football coach was
telling the truth (about the new field, that is). Fake grass is a
growing trend in these parts, and the Knights will join the Turf Wars
when they play their campus home opener Sept. 19 against Mitchell.
"I can't wait to get out there," says senior halfback Will Powell, a
featured backfield weapon along with Phil Wright. "The field looks
awesome. It should help us use our speed to get to the corner and make
cuts."
Robbie Hakl, a senior guard who will help Powell and Wright find
daylight, is pleased about the changes - but also sentimental.
"We're excited to play on the new turf, because it will add a
different atmosphere," he says. "But nothing will replace the old
McEneaney. That field had an atmosphere of its own that made it a
tough place to play."
Amen to that.
Tired of paying the Sioux Falls School District to play at Howard Wood
Field, O'Gorman started staging home games at the Mac in 1998.
The Catholic school's new stadium soon became known for the amenities
it lacked. The field was barren and beat up, like a Renaissance
Festival jousting ground after too much Elizabethan revelry.
The scoreboard seemed a relic from the Larry Jacobson days at O'G, and
the seating and walkways were cramped.
It was common for visiting teams and their fans to complain loudly
about such accommodations - which became part of the place's twisted
charm.
I recall playoff games against Washington and Roosevelt in which those
public schools were so worried about conditions that they lost focus.
The Knights, meanwhile, were comfortable with the field's shortcomings
and piled up victories.
"We didn't really mind the old field, because we were used to it,"
says Hakl. "We played that to our advantage."
As time went on, though, even O'Gorman grew tired of the Mac's chronic
inconvenience.
"We needed to do something just to run a regular business around
here," says Kueter.
The veteran coach agreed to give me a walking tour of the new athletic
complex, an ongoing $2.5 million project in conjunction with the
school renovation.
The $750,000 FieldTurf installation should be fully completed tonight,
and the Daktronics scoreboard (complete with instant replay) and
$400,000 track are also on target for the Sept. 19 campus opener.
The project will eventually include a new restroom/concession area,
expanded seating (for a capacity of 5,000) and a new track and field
area for pole vault, long jump, shot put and discus.
Striding proudly across a brilliant green synthetic football field,
Kueter stopped abruptly and pointed downward.
"Right about here is where that mudhole always was," he said. "You
couldn't grow grass on it, and you couldn't get rid of it. Well, we
finally got rid of it."
Things got so bad that the Knights considered scrapping the "great Mac
experiment" and moving late-season home games back to Howard Wood.
"It was robbing our younger kids of an area to use," says Kueter. "I
was keeping (sub-varsity) games on the practice fields because we
didn't want to hurt this field, and that was ridiculous.
"The soccer teams couldn't play out here because it was so bad, and
the visitors' seating (for football) was a problem. We just had
bleachers sitting on dirt; they weren't up in the air where you could
see. Even on the home side, people would put down blankets and fight
each other for seats. It was time for a change."
That's where the magic of fundraising came in - and there are signs of
it on the new surface.
The end-zone markings are blue and gold, but the logo is for major
donor Orthopedic Institute, not the vaunted Knights.
"I guess the secret's out on that one," says Kueter.
The O'Gorman logo does appear at the 50-yard line, and the field
itself symbolizes a trend in high school sports.
Ever since the "Turf Team" helped set up Howard Wood with FieldTurf in
2003, the synthetic grass has sprouted up everywhere - including
Aberdeen, Rapid City, Harrisburg and Garretson (Augustana and the
University of Sioux Falls jumped on board in the college ranks).
Yankton and West Central are among the school districts that actively
explored adding FieldTurf this summer.
"We'd like to have it as soon as we could, if it's feasible
financially," says Yankton athletic director Bob Winter. "A lot of
money has to be raised privately, and schools need to justify the cost
by how many times they use it. For us, it's kind of on hold right
now."
West Central coach Kent Mueller said his school looked into FieldTurf
after having to move a playoff game to Garretson last year due to poor
field conditions in Hartford.
"We thought maybe we could 'piggyback' in with O'Gorman, Harrisburg
and Augustana, but it never got beyond the planning stage," says
Mueller. "The majority of money would come from private funds. I
wouldn't say it's dead right now. But it's more like a dream."
So what's the big deal about FieldTurf?
Well, it eliminates the costly maintenance of real grass while
enduring the wear and tear that chews up grass fields during late fall
in South Dakota.
Popularized in the late 1990s, FieldTurf also reduces injuries that
studies linked to older forms of artificial turf.
It has a thickness and density like natural grass, and the blades are
surrounded by a shock-absorbing infill made from sand and ground
rubber.
As Kueter is quick to point out, O'Gorman has the new DuraSpine
Monofilament Turf System, which creates the look and feel of
individual blades of grass that stand on their own rather than
matting.
Howard Wood Field has "classic" FieldTurf with slit film fiber, which
doesn't stand up as well.
"There's nothing wrong with Howard Wood," says Kueter, whose team
opens its season in Brandon on Saturday.
"That surface is exactly the same as it was six years ago, which is
remarkable to me. But a better product is out now, and here it is."
So let the Turf Wars begin, as school districts try to keep up with
their neighbors in an increasingly exorbitant high school environment.
That means fewer facilities like the original McEneaney Field, where
the Knights got down and dirty on their way to two state titles,
paving the way for progress.
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