Hempfield Area School District will spend nearly $5.4 million to replace four of its grass fields with synthetic turf following a divided vote by the school board Monday night.
The district will place turf on its high school baseball, softball and multipurpose grass fields this summer. District officials cited rainy Western Pennsylvania weather as the reason for the switch to turf.
The district will pay McKinley Architecture and Engineering about $283,000 to complete design work for the turf fields. Turf materials will cost about $673,500 and installation will cost about $4.4 million.
President Jerry Radebaugh, Vice President Scott Learn, athletics committee chairman Mike Alfery, buildings and grounds committee chairman Vince DeAugustine and board members Jennifer Bretz, Daniel Graft and Jennifer Stape approved the motion.
Finance committee chair Tracy Miller and board member Lindsay Stevens opposed.
Miller, Stevens question project’s affordability
Miller expressed concerns of the project’s cost and a potential increased risk of injury to athletes playing on turf fields.
“I don’t believe that it is what’s best for the actual athletes,” she said.
Stevens suggested alternative methods to improve the quality of the grass fields without spending on turf — such as installing a better drainage system or resodding.
“That money that’s going to be dedicated to turf could be better spent on other projects that need to be fixed at the school,” she said.
Stape considered voting against the turf installation out of financial concern.
“However,” she said, “it’s my understanding that … it’s actually more efficient, in my eyes, to get the turf, because in the long run, you’re not going to be resodding frequently.”
Graft noted the district does not have the resources to frequently resod its numerous grass fields.
“You look collegiately — Pitt baseball (has) turf, Seton Hill (has) turf,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s Western Pennsylvania. We can’t control Mother Nature.”
Alfery: ‘It’s the right time’
Alfery said he believes turf fields would bolster the district’s sports facility offerings.
“Quite frankly, there’s a lot of people who would decide against moving here specifically because of our sports assets,” he said. “I think it’s a good investment. I think it’s the right time.”
Radebaugh said it could be advantageous for the district to install turf fields ahead of its estimated $150 million high school renovation. The district is set to break ground on the project, which would include updates to the building’s parking lots, in June.
“We’re going to be putting in new roads, new parking lots,” he said. “We’re not going to come in five years from now and tear up everything that we just did.”
DeAugustine noted Business Manager Paul Schott, Superintendent Mark Holtzman and Athletic Director Brandon Rapp all supported the switch to turf.
“That’s important to me,” he said, “because we have those guys in place to talk to the coaches,” he said. “The business manager talks to the right people to (determine) if we can afford this or not. For me personally, I put my trust in those people.”
Baseball coach, parents support turf purchase
Teacher Tim Buzzard, who has served as head coach for the high school baseball team for 19 years, said his athletes are often forced to practice inside because of muddy fields — the result of frequent spring rainfall.
He noted that ahead of the team’s final section series last year, he was only able to host five outdoor practices because of weather conditions.
“This is such a big deal to our kids, our players — our current ones plus our previous ones,” he said.
Parent Katelyn Printz said she never knows where her sons’ baseball practices will take place.
“It is a little bit of a scheduling nightmare,” said Printz, whose children are in seventh and ninth grades. “We have two working parents in our family. It’s a constant — you wait for that 3 o’clock text to see where the kids are going to be (practicing) that day.
“They work very hard indoors, but they do have a hard time competing, because they don’t have the outdoor space that a lot of other schools have.”
Parent Tom Wheaton, who has had two sons play baseball for the district over the years, also supported the switch to turf.
“We have a reputation,” he said. “ ‘The field sucks. The field is so bad.’ It’s all through the baseball community.”
