Memorial Stadium: The Dawn of FieldTurf

[Mavric]

The week before Christmas, for the first time in his life, a grain elevator owner from Nemaha County rented a jet. He made travel plans to Maryland. He ushered Osborne and a few other college coaches, including Creighton baseball’s Jack Dahm.


Osborne wasn’t feeling well that morning — “Jim, if you don’t have room for me, I’ll just stay home.”

No, no. We got room. (He didn’t tell Osborne that if he wasn’t going, nobody was going).

They arrived in Cumberland, Maryland, and met up with the FieldTurf founders. Well, Osborne said, where’s the field?

“You’re standing on it.”

“I really thought I was standing on a grass field,” Osborne says.

OWH

 

[AZRaiderH8r]

Very cool story. I played on Astro Turf as a kid, and it was just brutal. I've never been more sore after a game than those played on that garbage. My son's high school uses Field Turf, and the kids really seem to like it. The turf holds up well in the Arizona sun and lasts a long time. But, I will say that the little bits of rubber get pretty deep in the rug burn type abrasions that the players get from the turf, and those bits can be a real pain to remove.

 

[CheeseHusker]

First time I ever stood on the Memorial Stadium field was at the 1983 spring game. I was absolutely shocked. It was basically like walking in your living room. It blew my mind that people played full contact sports on this surface. Back then, there was no padding or anything under it.... the one thing I do remember was that the field was a greener color than the outside of it.

Maybe 10 years or so later I went on the field again after an Oklahoma game, and it was a different surface. It seemed less abrasive and more cushiony, but I still found it hard to get my head around the notion of going full throttle on it. When I was at UNL for two years, I played flag football and occasionally I got to play it in Cook Pavilion which was exactly the same surface as the stadium.... I think it might have been called Astroturf "8", as in the 8th version of it. My knees used to hurt like a mofo the next day, and I wasn't even getting hit.

Good riddance to it. Growing up I was used to seeing sports played on it, and even liked it from a spectator point of view as it was so clean looking.... but whenever I see it now I just shake my head that they allowed this for so long. It's a wonder the injuries weren't worse than they were.

I've been on the FieldTurf version for a couple of media days; I didn't get a chance to run up and down but it did feel different.... kind of like being on a really nice golf fairway.

 

[Tomhusker64]

I recall coaching a game at UNO on their astroturf field during a pretty heavy late season rain. The water build up on it and under it made it feel like you were on a watered that had sprung a leak. It was terrible.

 

[NUance]

Cool story! Never heard the details before.

 

[Red Five]

I played pick up football and intramurals the on astro turf in Cook. That stuff was brutal. I lost so much skin on it.

And playing soccer on it was like kicking a ball on concrete and it would roll forever.

I was glad when they switched to field turf my Junior year.