Heath Hutcheson, Campus Carrier sports editor
Berry College is the largest college campus in the world with thousands and thousands of acres to maintain, so keeping all of that land looking so beautiful all year round is definitely no easy task. Of course, the numerous sports fields spread out across campus need attention too, because not only do these areas need to look pretty, but they need to properly serve the athletes who play on them as well.
In order to get a closer look at the work that goes into this arduous process, groundskeeper Tony Rust spoke about how he and his team maintain the athletic fields across Berry’s campus. His crew takes care of all of the outdoor athletic facilities which include the football stadium, beach volleyball courts, intramural fields, and the practice football field behind Richards Gym, as well as Hermann Hall.
“In the spring, we have five sports currently running, baseball, softball, lacrosse, track and beach volleyball,” Rust said. “This is a much busier time for us than the fall when we just take care of football and cross country.”
While each field requires their own type of work to be done, much of this work is reliant on whether or not the weather permits it, or just the seasonal aspects.
“Our rule of thumb is we usually try to mow Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when the bermuda is growing,” Rust said. “I wouldn’t say there’s any particular field that takes the most work to maintain, but it just depends on the time of year.”
In order for the grounds crew to know which areas need to be taken care of at what time, there needs to be clear communication between them and the athletics department, so Director of Athletics Angel Mason explained how that process typically goes.
“If the grounds crew is spraying for weeds or bugs and we have to be off of the field, they tend to communicate that at least a week or so in advance if it’s during season,” Mason said. “They communicate very well with us and they will usually go straight to our head coaches.”
In order to keep up with the times of each event, the grounds crew keeps a whiteboard at their facility that outlines the schedule for each month, and they’ll plan accordingly at the start of each week to focus on what fields they need to prep for, which involves chalking them to mark lines, dragging them to maintain a smooth soil base, and mowing them.
While the sports that are in season will get the most attention when they need it, all the fields still need to be kept green all throughout the year.
“General maintenance will typically go throughout the whole year, except for soccer,” Mason said. “For soccer, the field typically goes dormant over the winter, so during that time you won’t see people accessing it, except for maybe some overseeding depending on how torn up the field gets during the fall.”
The amount of work can actually be heavily dependent on the type of turf on each field, whether that be natural or synthetic grass, or even sand.
“In comparison to most other campuses, there is a whole lot of land to cover around here, with much of it being just massive fields of grass,” Mason said. “Our groundskeeping teams’ routines are heavily based on the sports, the season and the particular venue. Grass fields will usually take a lot more work.”
Taking care of Valhalla takes much less work to maintain as opposed to the other fields due to the synthetic turf. It only takes Rust himself around 30 to 45 minutes to do everything that needs to be done at the stadium, like leveling out all the rubber pellets and the divots in the ground.
“It’s good as long as we take care of it once or twice a week, depending on the amount of traffic it gets,” Rust said.
Oftentimes, the grounds crew will spend even more time maintaining the areas around each field as opposed to the fields themselves, which can heavily depend on the terrain.
“When we take care of beach volleyball, we use a groomer machine to level the grass area around it, not so much the courts themselves,” Rust said. “The coaches actually do a lot of that work.”
A good portion of the groundskeeping work is actually done by student workers, who are taught how to use all the heavy machinery that goes into the work, not just the mowers.
“Our group hires around two to four students to help us out, and that works really well,” Rust said. “We train our kids to do pretty much everything that we do, and it takes a lot of stress away knowing that they provide so much help.”
Berry College’s status as one of the most beautiful campuses in the country owes a lot to the work these people do as they consistently maintain the land in order to keep it fresh and functional.