Work on The Football Field and Track

Let me start with a belated THANK YOU to a generous donor who offered to pay for a track around our football field. The track is made with "screenings" -- fine gravel dust -- that will continue to compact and take shape with use. Eventually this track will be replaced with a competition rubberized track, but currently it will serve as a great place for our students to exercise.

After the heavy rains in January, we discovered a problem: the water that was running off the field was being held in by our new track and making swampy areas around the outside of the track. To fix this, we had Troy Early and his team install a french drain around the whole border of the field and track. The drain connects to the rest of our water drainage system so we should be able to move all that runoff water down to the lake, where it will be used to irrigate the fields in the summer. You can see where the drain was installed by a sandy area about 1 foot wide inside the track. In the spring, the bermuda grass will spread to grow over that sand, and our drain will be virtually invisible -- but no less effective.

While Troy was digging this drain, we also had him install additional sprinkler heads along the edge of the track. You may have noticed that our field was brown along the outside edges last year even when the center of the field was green. This is because we tried to save money by using fewer sprinkler heads. Our experience last fall made it clear these heads were needed. Now that they are installed, we can look forward to a lush green field growing up to the edge of our track.