By Mitchell Kragenbrink
In 2013, Cornell College upgraded their field to have turf instead of grass. To many in our high school who were associated with the football team, this was a blessing. A lot of students wanted administration to make a deal with Cornell as a turf field is better in many aspects to play on. Turf never gets muddy which can make playing on the field more favorable and the field does not get worn down by a lot of play on it.
A new turf football field would cost about $750,000. This is a large up front cost, but is slightly offset because maintenance crews do not need to give a turf field as much care. Turf fields do not need to be mowed, resodded, or weeded. The lines on the field would not need to be repainted because the lines are permanently put on the field. People working on maintenance can spend their time fixing other crucial things within our school district.
With a traditional grass field, when it rains, there are puddles and huge collections of mud. If a player is running down the sidelines over one of these big patches of mud, he or she could have a very violent fall. This means with traditional fields, there will be more accidents and injuries to players that would not happen on synthetic turf fields.
Many other schools around Mount Vernon have decided to switch to turf such as Clear Creek Amana, Solon, Beckman, Independence, and Kingston Stadium, used by Cedar Rapids schools. They, like many other schools across the country, chose to switch to turf because of the many benefits that come with it.
Some people who are against sharing Cornell’s field feel this way because they think it is important to uphold the tradition of playing at the ‘Bellamy bowl’ next to the First Street building. They may not necessarily be against a turf field, but they do want to continue playing at this location. This problem could be fixed by replacing the grass field with synthetic turf.
It is time we stop spending thousands of dollars on the field yearly for upkeep and make an investment that will require less maintenance and keep players from getting as many injuries. It is time for our school to make the move toward replacing our grass field at the First Street location with synthetic turf.
