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Sunday, October 20, 2002

By Gerry Dulac, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

"That's the worst field I've ever played on, and I've played in Cincinnati a couple times, so that's saying something. We had heard stories, rumors, that it was pretty bad. But it wasn't until you got out here that you saw it was busted up. It was sandy....holes everywhere. I mean holes. Not divots, holes. It's a horrible field."

Browns kicker Phil Dawson
Sept. 29. 2002

There has not been a football game at Heinz Field since the Steelers defeated the Cleveland Browns three weeks ago, since Phil Dawson skipped a potential winning field goal off Kimo von Oelhoffen's helmet, then threw a verbal rock at the playing surface.

That has been enough time for the Steelers to get their field back in condition for their appearance on Monday Night Football against the Indianapolis Colts. That has given them an opportunity to re-seed the middle of the field, where the traffic is heaviest, and replace some balding spots with the green hue of sprouting turf.

The Steelers are not responding to Dawson's criticism.

They are merely doing what they always try to do at Heinz Field -- maintain its condition as well as possible in a stadium that plays host to two football teams and is located in a northeast climate.

"I don't get concerned because some kicker who misses a field goal is going to say your field's bad," said Steelers President Dan Rooney. "That has no input with me at all. The field will be great Monday night because we have had time to bring it back."

The Steelers do not always have that luxury. Because they share Heinz Field with the University of Pittsburgh, the surface gets more traffic than the Parkway East. Pitt had played four games at Heinz Field by the time the Browns came to town for the Sept. 29 game, including a game against Toledo the day before. The Steelers had played three games -- two preseason and a Sunday night game against the Oakland Raiders, -- by the time their divisional rival came to town.

Even Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, another field that has been criticized by NFL players, does not get such steady traffic.

"My statement always is, no matter what technology we develop, it's going to be really hard to grow grass on the turnpike," said Dr. Andy McNitt, assistant professor of soil science/turfgrass at Penn State University.

A bad mix

McNitt is acutely aware of the problems facing Heinz Field and other stadiums in the Northeast. He helped develop the soil mixture and turf conditions at Heinz Field and other NFL venues such as Cleveland Browns Stadium and Lambeau Field, and baseball parks such as PNC Park and Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

McNitt said the amount of play, coupled with the hot summer, has adversely affected turf conditions at Heinz Field. He said the only Northeast stadium that gets more use than Heinz Field is Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

"It gets a lot of play, that's the major problem," McNitt said. "And the hot, dry summer slowed down the maturity process. You can put water on it, but the roots don't mature when it's that hot."

When the roots don't mature, the grass becomes unstable. That's why big clumps of sod are churned up during a game. When that happens, the sand-based surface begins to feel more slippery because there is little grass to help with the footing.

McNitt said sand is used as the base surface because it helps the field drain better when there is a thunderstorm. He said 92 percent of the base surface at Heinz Field is sand. The other 8 percent is silt and clay.

"You can always put water on," said George Hamilton, a professor of turfgrass science at Penn State. "But you can't always take it off. When you go to a high sand mix, if you have a lot of rain you can get the water off the field real fast."

Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown looks at it the situation a little differently.

"What's happened is these fields were designed by agronomists, and they do grow grass extremely well," he said. "The problem is, when the grass is worn off, as all grass is in football, you come down to a sand base instead of earth. In the old days, we played on mud all the time. The grass was gone, but it was on a firm base, and you could get enough footing.. When you get to that same point in these new fields, you're playing on a beach."

The Bengals have re-sodded their field twice this season. Brown said they likely will re-sod again in November. The Bengals get their sod from the same place as the Steelers -- a sod farm in New Jersey.

But that solution is also part of the problem. Every time the field is re-sodded, teams begin the growing process all over again because the roots never get a chance to take hold.

The Steelers re-sodded their entire field after the 2001 season. They also had re-sodded parts of the field -- primarily the middle -- in November. Rooney said they plan to do a similar re-sodding next month.

"That is not the best thing to do," Rooney said. "You're better off planting it and letting it grow when you have the time because now the roots will get into the soil.

"At the end of the year, we'll see how it is before we make the decision to re-do the whole field or the amount we do. We want the roots to grow down as deep as possible, give this sod a chance."

Growing pains

Ideally, teams would be better off seeding the field and letting the roots develop quicker. But that has not been a viable alternative.

"You can't wait for a field to grow," McNitt said. "Stadiums are built, and they want to play in it."

After the Browns' game, field manager Tim Keane re-seeded the middle of the field with perennial rye grass, not with seeds from Kentucky bluegrass, the original surface. The area was covered with a blanket similar to what golf-course superintendents use to protect their putting surfaces in the winter. The reason perennial rye is used is because it's a stronger blade and can withstand the pounding better than Kentucky bluegrass.

Also, it will germinate quicker, meaning the grass will grow faster. That's why Rooney said the field will be fine for the game tomorrow night against the Colts.

"We look at [the field] all the time," Rooney said. "We do try to get it right. Playing up here in the northeast is a lot more difficult than it would be if this were Tampa. It's doable. It's not a question that it's hard. But we have people, that's their job, to keep the field good."

But the task is tougher when the field is home to two teams. And when there are three games in a nine-day span -- as was the case from Sept. 21 to Sept. 29, when the Steelers played once and Pitt played two home games -- the field does not have enough time to recover.

That's why Dawson was so critical of the playing surface after he missed the 45-yard attempt in overtime that would have given the Browns -- not the Steelers -- a 16-13 victory.

"They had a college game there the day before and, when I came out the next day, it felt extremely soft," Dawson said a few days ago, his anger subsided. "It was real slippery and real soft in the middle. Our snapper, he'd gone out there and [said] the ball will be in a hole. Those are things you come to expect later in the year, but it was early September and it caught us off guard. You would expect that in November and December."

McNitt said the same sand/silt mixture that is used at Heinz Field also is used at Cleveland Stadium.

"And our field is absolutely perfect," Dawson said. "The main difference is, there are no college games. It's getting time to rebound."

Kickers have objected to the playing surface at Heinz Field and Paul Brown Stadium, saying it is soft and unstable and prevents a kicker from getting good footing for his plant foot. Even if he does get good footing, the feeling that he might slip could be enough psychologically to disrupt a kicker.

"Your plant foot has a big-time effect where your ball goes," Dawson said. "You've got to change your steps, be a lot more compact with your steps, and it snowballs from there."

Heinz Field certainly has had a lot of missed field goals. Kris Brown, a career 85 percent kicker, missed 10 field goal attempts in the inaugural season at Heinz Field while failing just four times on the road. Opposing kickers converted just 3 of 9 there during the regular season. When the year ended, Brown opted to sign with the expansion Houston Texans, where he could kick indoors.

Todd Peterson, the Steelers' new kicker, has converted 4 of 5 field-goal attempts at Heinz Field. The one kick he missed was blocked by the Browns, then recovered by the Steelers. He kicked the winning 31-yard field goal on the next play.

"To this point, I haven't felt that any of the kicks that weren't good kicks were a problem other than mine," Peterson said. "Mentally, to me, that's what separates guys who can make it in a tough place and guys who can't. You're going to have a bad game, but you've got to bounce back. If somebody says the field is horrible, the bottom line is you've got to make it."

Peterson signed as a free agent with the Steelers, even though he was aware of Heinz Field's reputation and that of some other venues in the AFC North.

"This is a division that poses its challenges for the kicking game, specifically place-kicking," Peterson said. "Cleveland, Cincinnati, here and Baltimore, between the climates and the fact they're outdoor stadiums, this is probably, across the board, as challenging a kicking division as there is."

After tomorrow, the Steelers are away for two weeks. Pitt has three more home games, including Saturday against Boston College. The only time the teams have back-to-back games here again is the second weekend in November.

Meanwhile, Rooney will weather the criticism of his field and suggestions the Steelers might be better off installing FieldTurf, which they use in their indoor practice facility on the South Side.

McNitt said it costs between $800,000 and $1.2 million to install an infilled system such as FieldTurf, nearly 30 times the cost of re-sodding Heinz Field. The surface is referred to as "infilled" because the artificial grass is filled with sand and rubber.

"[FieldTurf] was never an option going in here," Rooney said, referring to Heinz Field. "We had decided we were going to play on grass. Down the road, that might be in every field. I think it should be in every indoor field right now. But, we think where we are right now is OK. We don't buy that the field is not in good shape."