Artificial Turf Offers Safe, Economical Alternative in the D.C. Everest Stadium

Wausau Daily Herald
Editorial by Richard Johnson
May 10, 2005

I read with interest the Daily Herald's recent editorial regarding the proposal to install artificial turf in the D.C. Everest football stadium. The editorial included the phrase "turf wars."

Who is at war? Clearly the members of the Stiehm Stadium Community Improvement Project have done their homework over the past few months. They have reviewed all of the options with the D.C. Everest School Board, they have been in the public and shared the details of the project and have been met with overwhelming support. So just who are the warring parties in the Herald's so-called turf war?

The decision to install an artificial surface at Stiehm Stadium is the right decision. Increased access to the stadium is reason enough to justify the expense. Eighth grade, freshman and sophomore football games will be moved from difficult-to-maintain fields to a state-of-the-art field at Stiehm. Add to that increased access for other uses, a new sound system, lower maintenance costs, and a cost avoidance of nearly $150,000 to replace the present field (as the editorial stated, "money the district simply doesn't have") and it is clear that the artificial FieldTurf option is not the only option in Everest's playbook but it is certainly the best one.

While manufacturers and retailers alike would love to sell a second pair of turf shoes to every player that plays on the new artificial surface, that is just not necessary. The FieldTurf that is being contemplated for Stiehm Stadium has performance characteristics similar to grass and the same cleats purchased for a grass field will work just fine on the artificial surface.

The Herald's editorial omitted some pertinent information from the Barnhill study presented in the American Journal of Sports Medicine: "Higher incidences of 0-day time loss injuries, non-contact injuries, surface/epidetmal injuries, muscle-related trauma, and injuries during higher temperatures were reported on FieldTurf. Higher incidences of 1- to 2-day time injuries, 22+ days time loss injuries, head and neural trauma, and ligament injuries were reported on natural grass."

Overall the study showed there were 72 percent more serious injuries on grass than on turf. As an athlete, parent or coach, I would rather face a 0-day time loss injury rather than a longer-term injury or possibly a potentially life-altering head or neural trauma.

If one were to accept the Daily Herald's concern about how the field will be replaced in 10 to 15 years when it wears out, track meets would still be run on cinders and we would all still be utilizing IBM PCs with no fixed disk storage and the computer industry would have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Will artificial turf evolve by the time the FieldTurf at Stiehm Stadium needs to be replaced? Most certainly. Just as FieldTurf is a dramatic improvement over the original Astroturf. That evolution should not stop D.C. Everest and the Stiehm Stadium Community Improvement Project from doing the right thing now. I applaud their efforts and am anxious to see the installation complete.

Richard A. Johnson of Wausau is president of Eastbay and chief executive officer of Footlocker.com.