Wake Forest To Install FieldTurf At Groves Stadium
4/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 18, 2006
Winston-Salem, N.C. - Wake Forest will install FieldTurf at Groves Stadium in time for the 2006 season, Wake Forest athletics director Ron Wellman and FieldTurf CEO John Gilman announced Tuesday.
The new FieldTurf will replace the natural grass that is currently in place at Groves. FieldTurf is in use in more than 30 NCAA Division 1-A football stadiums including Kansas State, Louisville, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. Wake Forest will become the second Atlantic Coast Conference school to play its home football games on FieldTurf, joining Boston College.
Wake Forest's first game on the new surface will be September 2 against Syracuse, the team's season opener.
"FieldTurf is an excellent product that is being used by numerous NFL and top college teams," said Wellman. "It will give us consistently good playing conditions in all weather. We installed FieldTurf on one of our practice fields last year and the coaches and players really liked it. The new field, along with structural repairs, electrical and water pressure upgrades, is the next step in renovating Groves Stadium over the next several years."
"We've had the opportunity for the past couple of years to practice on FieldTurf and we really like it," head coach Jim Grobe said. "Our players and coaches enjoy practicing on it and we think it will be a great addition to Groves Stadium. I think the fans will enjoy it as much as players and coaches have."
"Being able to install FieldTurf at Groves Stadium is definitely a feather in our cap," said Gilman. "The ACC is one of the top conferences in all of college football, and we're delighted to be selected by Wake Forest. I know that Ron and Coach Grobe spent a lot of time researching this matter, and it's great that we came out on top. I guarantee that the Demon Deacon players, coaches and fans will be extremely happy with their new FieldTurf field. We're all looking forward to that September 2 home opener against Syracuse."
In addition to its growing popularity in the college ranks, FieldTurf has already established itself as the turf of choice in the National Football League. Twenty-three of the NFL's 32 teams currently use FieldTurf at their stadiums and/or their practice facilities. Also, three Major League Baseball teams use FieldTurf at their stadiums.
The NFL Players Association conducted a survey of all NFL players who were asked to rank the league's 32 stadium fields on a variety of factors, such as playability, safety, etc. The NFL players rated FieldTurf ahead of 15 of the league's 19 natural grass fields.
FieldTurf is the result of years of research - evident in the patented FieldTurf infill mix of silica sand and cryogenic rubber and patented layering process that deliver a system that emulates natural grass. Additional benefits are found in improved player safety, reduced maintenance costs and flexibility for conversion - allowing stadium managers to quickly change the field from one sport to another or to easily host a variety of sporting events, concerts and other special events directly on top of the FieldTurf surface.
Over the past few years, the quality and performance of FieldTurf's patented system has resulted in over 1800 installations in more than 40 countries.