Bunt coverages and zone blitzes are all important when it comes to winning a game, on a Tuesday afternoon, or Friday night, but a lot of work happens prior to game days. For that matter, even on game day.
Brian Jackson (left) prepares the GHS Softball field prior to the first Lady Jays practice and Rafe Watkins puts some tender care to the green surface at Jelsma Stadium. Yard work has become part of the job.
When everyone enters Jelsma Stadium for the first time of the year the first thing they see are those white lines on top of the thick, green bermuda grass before the “G” grabs their attention, and the thought process quickly moves over to the feeling of a Friday night win.
Drive by any afternoon and you can find a Guthrie High School coach working on “his” field. Whether its softball coach Brian Jackson dragging the field by hand, football coach Rafe Watkins mowing, or baseball coach Jon Chappell weed eating and edging. It has all become part of the job.
Gone are the days of a grounds crew, or grounds supervisor and not just for the Guthrie district, but for many school districts. In fact, it may be hard to find someone working on their field that is not a coach. Now, this is not any breaking news, it has been this way for nearly a decade after schools were force to make some cut backs.
Not only does Jelsma Stadium require a lot of attention, but so does the GHS football practice field and Junior High practice field at Faver Alternative School. All three need to be marked, sprayed, mowed, fertilized, trimmed, and watered. Outside of the marking, coaches need to repeat steps 1-5 often. With all that, just hope a mower, sprinkler head, or sprayer does not go down and need fixing.
It’s not only the head coaches, but the assistant coaches, who put in their time with the field preparation. All of the GHS coaches met last week to help mark and spray the practice field before traveling down Wentz to the Rock and put up the South end goal post. Meanwhile on the same day, on Perkins Road, the Junior High football coaches are doing the same with their field by marking and spraying.
It’s not often you drive by, or go into the stadium, and not see Chappell with some type of a yard utensil from February to November (if he’s lucky). Not only is he an assistant football coach, but serves as the baseball coach so yard work comes natural to the coaching vet.
It has become second nature for these coaches being their own grounds crew, but how many coaches have the honor of making Jelsma Stadium, or Squires Field looking as good as they do with the prestige and history they both have not only in this state, but across the midwest and nation.
Nothing like a long day of preparing the athletic fields before going home and repeating the same process on their own yard.
Be the first to comment on "More than coaching: Yard Work"