Don't tread on me. Please? How agencies deal with overuse of sport fields.

Now that we're in the dog days of summer, parks and recreation agencies are again confronted with difficult choices regarding athletic field overuse and turf damage.

Unfortunately, this year, the annual onslaught coincides withith financial uncertainty looming over many public-sector" recreation agencies. When operating budget cuts are requested, many departments look to the maintenance divisions to experience the first cutbacks. Seasonal employees who conduct athletic field maintenance daily during the spring and summer months may be affected, and budget cuts may result in the elimination of scheduled fertilizations, aerating, irrigation, equipment upgrades and other necessities to maintaining healthy athletic fields. Also, capital-development programs are frequently put on hold during budget crises; as a result, much-needed park lands aren't purchased and developed, while existing park lands take a beating.

Adding to the budget dilemma is the growing number of citizens utilizing a limited number of park facilities. One municipal recreation department in South Carolina offers seven multi-use athletic fields year round for baseball,softball, football, soccer, cheerleading and special events. In addition to the organized programs, the local school system, home school organizations and other members of the public frequently use these fields when no organized events are scheduled. The fields get no relief and, unless the overuse is aggressively addressed, it quickly begins to show.

What to Do About Wear

Recreation administrators in the Southeast are tackling this problem from a variety of angles. Here's what several of them advise.

Mike Perry, director of recreation and parks in Alpharetta, Ga., says, "A few of our strategies include reducing the number of teams and players we register. As a city department, we also have about 50 percent non-residents in our soccer program, and we may reduce that number. We are also looking to light a couple of fields to reduce the wear on our only lighted field. This will spread the wear out over more fields.

"We are moving [using portable goals] our goalmouths every week or so," he continues. "We are also hoping to install one of the much-improved artificial turfs on one of our athletic fields, if funding is approved. Finally, we have fenced in and locked a few of our fields and limited the amount of open play. There is a fine line of providing a quality playing field for program participants and making these same fields available to the general public for open play."

Bill Berry, park supervisor for Rock Hill (S.C.) Parks and Recreation Department, notes that there's no easy answer to the question of athletic field overuse. "One way is to increase the number of times you aerate each year," he suggests. "It allows you to break up compaction and still be able to play the same day. Of course, proper irrigation, fertilization and cutting add to the overall health of the turf, and allow it to better sustain overuse.

"If at all possible, haying the proper turf is also helpful," Berry says. "When it is possible, rotate fields. If you have more than one field that will work, don't always play the youth on field A and the adults on field B. Swap hack and forth so that the wear spot will be in different places and allow the turf some recovery time. You can also try topdressing the field twice per year if funds are available, or split available funds into two topdressings; change in the soil profile will always help. If the budget is not a problem, you could try crumb rubber to known wear spots to help with the problems."

A Hands-On Approach to Soccer Fields

Bob Reardon, turf and irrigation team leader for the Mecklenburg (N.C.) Parks and Recreation Department, says, "Like most other park and recreation departments, we experience serious problems with the turf on our soccer fields. Of our 130 or so athletic fields, only about 55 are soccer fields. We have over 23,000 youth players, 18 years and under, that belong to recognized associations using them. This does not count adult players and 'walk-on' groups. One of the worst things about soccer is that its season is played predominantly at a time when our Bermuda grass is dormant. Other grasses--cool season, for example--will not work in this part of the country for this type of use.

"As far as controlling or minimizing the damage, we do a few things that seem to help," Reardon says. "First, and probably most important, is to work closely with the associations to keep the fields closed as much as possible for routine maintenance. Also, we encourage them to stay off the fields when they are wet. We also have designated some fields 'game-only' and allow no practice at all. This is very helpful. At multi-field complexes, some associations are rotating a field per year out of play. This allows us the time to do serious maintenance and even totally rehabilitate the closed field.

"When rebuilding fields, we are putting more of the soil amendments, sand and compost, in the center portion of the field where the most severe damage takes place," Reardon continues. "This helps cushion the stolons and rhizomes so even after damage is incurred, the grass will rejuvenate. We have started seeding most of our soccer fields instead of sprigging them. This allows us to re-seed into the thin/bare areas a couple of times each season, and keep new grass coming along instead of waiting until they are completely bare and having to re-sprig. Some of the new 'seedable' varieties are quite good. When possible, designing the field as one big open area is much better than laying out a true soccer field. This allows the goals to be moved on a regular basis and keep a wear pattern from forming.

"Lastly," Reardon concludes, "we are in the process of partnering with several of the local schools to have access to their athletic fields after school hours. We will do the maintenance, and they will use them for their normal activities and special events, hut we will have certain evenings and weekends to book games. Hopefully this will spread the use out over a greater number of facilities. All this being said, we still fight this battle constantly. People want to use the fields on a non-stop basis and still expect the turf to be in good shape. It's just not realistic, so we spend a huge amount of time just trying to educate the public."

When it Rains, if Pours

Sharon Plunkett, director of operations for the Gwinnett County (Ga.) Parks and Recreation Department, wrestles often with issues of signage, youth associations and play during inclement weather.

"The use of sport fields during inclement weather causes a lot of field/turf damage," she says. "We have enhanced our communication to the youth athletic associations that are contracted to use the sport fields in the parks to accomplish the following: First, if there's inclement weather during the week when we deem the sport fields unplayable, but the associations elect to play on them, they are responsible for the cost associated with any field repairs or maintenance needed. Second, if over the weekends, inclement weather occurs and the associations do not play on the fields, they are to contact us and let us know, so that we won't hold them responsible for any damage done to the fields due to unorganized use by the public. Third, we use the marquee boards at the entrance to the parks to post if the sport fields are closed due to inclement weather. We are also researching signage in which the sign flips with wording indicating whether the fields are closed due to inclement weather.

"During the off-season," Plunkett continues, "we close sport fields during renovation of turf, but we always keep one field open for play for the general public. There is so little down time of fields--we may be talking three to four weeks at the most.

Youth associations also help fund much of the sod and turf replacement between seasons, because their own program places a heavy wear and tear on the fields. Our staff is also researching other methods for turf maintenance and ground cover to address the concerns due to the long sport seasons and additional use of the sport fields by the general public for pick-up games. It is becoming more and more difficult to maintain turf, at all, on soccer fields. particularly.

"We are also developing some areas in our parks with more open pastoral, irrigated areas where public pick-up games can be played," Plunkett concludes. "That way, we can provide and move temporary soccer goals around and create some landscaping that enables play without destroying sport fields that already receive extensive use. We are also looking into restructuring a parks/grounds maintenance staff to work seven days a week in our parks to have staff present to monitor field usage better. Bottom line--we haven't solved the problem of maintaining a safe playing turf on our sport fields with the heavy organized and open public play we are having, but we're working on it."

Regardless of the methods used to address athletic field overuse and damage to the playing surface, there are several underlying philosophical questions recreation administrators and staff should ask themselves, such as: What role does aesthetics (i.e., perfectly groomed green grass) play in meeting the mission of the department and community? Do organized or unorganized groups deserve more access time to athletic fields?

Attempting to the such challenges--and this is only one of many--with limited staff, finding, equipment and facilities is no easy task. Fortunately, communities continue to realize the importance of the park and recreation department's role in the health of its citizenry and natural resources. Ideally, through information sharing and education efforts, these citizens will be understanding and proactive in their support of efforts to address problems such as facility overuse.