Detroit, MI, August 26--It's AstroTurf on steroids. It's the field of the Little Black Things. It's fake. It's plastic. It's everywhere. And most people say it is the future, according to the Detroit Free Press.
This is the age of synthetic turf, a time when cost-cutting high schools big, small and in-between tear up the sod roots of the past and lay down sheets of stitched-together squares of polyethylene fibers, mixed with recycled bits of rubber from tires and shoes.
It's coming soon to a field near you -- if it's not already there.
As football season begins today across Michigan, in some conferences more than half the teams will play on synthetic turf. This summer, more than 20 schools installed new turf fields, bringing the state's total to about 50, with about half in Metro Detroit.
And those in the turf industry say this is more than a passing fancy. They say the movement won't stop until every field in the state -- from Iron Mountain to Lansing Everett to Temperance Bedford to Detroit Crockett -- has gone fake.
Twenty-seven companies in North America sell synthetic turf. Naturally, each claims to have an innovative, better product.
But to the casual observer, the fields are more or less the same.
They start with a complex, underground drainage system and a few layers of concrete and dirt. On top of that comes a layer of shock-absorbent rubber. Tufted into that rubber backing are sheets of fake grass made from different blends of polyethylene fibers. Polyethylene is a popular plastic.
Between the fibers goes the imitation dirt in-fill -- made up of a ratio of Little Black Things and sometimes sand.
And every 15 yards or so, the sheets, colored with school logos and field markings, are stitched or chemically bonded together.
Some fields have taller fibers. Some have more Little Black Things and less -- or no -- sand. Each claims to do something different -- provide more safety, a better "real-grass" feel, a faster running surface, more durability.
To industry folks, these different methods of engineering mean a lot. To the average football player, it would be hard to tell the difference.
FieldTurf is the industry leader with thousands of fields nationwide, including Ford Field, Michigan Stadium and two of the oldest high school fields in the state -- the 6-year-old surface at Birmingham Detroit Country Day and the 4-year-old at Holland Christian. The Montreal-based company protects its product with 47 patents and various lawsuits.
"Since we were the first on the market and we invented synthetic turf, we didn't have to rush," FieldTurf marketing manager Darren Gill said. "We had time to test it and find the best system. We didn't need to rush it into the marketplace."
Now, plenty of others have flooded the marketplace.
Sprinturf, based in Wayne, Pa., and General Sports Turf Systems, headquartered in Rochester, are two that service a good deal of Michigan high schools. The biggest discernable distinction in their products is that they don't use sand in their in-fills, although their Web sites detail plenty of other variants.
These fields generally cost $500,000 to $1 million each, with most high school projects in the lower half of that range.
For that money, the companies offer these promises: easy upkeep, lower maintenance cost.
