Turf trouble
The issue of turf for the field hockey team is not one the university had to face.
It’s a problem Athletics Director Herb Deromedi and the athletics department have known about for a while.
Months ago, athletics department officials saw the Kelly/Shorts Stadium’s turf as being not playable. After receiving an allocation of almost $1 million from the Board of Trustees on March 4 for the project, the athletics department sent out bids for a new synthetic turf that is similar to grass.
But the turf products slated for consideration are unacceptable for NCAA field hockey standards, leaving the field hockey team without a place to play.
University President Michael Rao said he’s in a bit of a state of shock. “We have known about this need for more than a year and a half. In comparison, I have known about this particular problem for less than a month,” he said.
The situation smacks of short-sightedness and unpreparedness. Why didn’t anyone identify this problem sooner?
Deromedi deserves some of the blame. But trustees do, too. They approved $975,000 to bring the stadium up to the standards of modern Division 1-A football surfaces.
Board members can’t say they didn’t think about the problem. If trustees didn’t know much about the issue of turf, why didn’t they have the insight to ask about how the change would affect sports other than football? After all, they are the stewards of the university.
We raise these questions because the issue of the turf is an equality issue. If CMU is committed to meeting Title IX requirements, then the field hockey team must have a place to play.
All the suggestions that the team should play all away games or use another university’s field for home games should stop. Not only would it hurt recruitment for the team (which won a Mid-American Conference championship last year), being on the road for 12 consecutive weeks would hurt the players’ grades. This would be a big mistake considering the team’s academic record, placing 11 of its student-athletes on the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division I National Academic Squad.
Another answer being tossed around is the possibility of a new field hockey facility that would cost the university about $800,000 or possibly more. However, as Rao said, CMU just doesn’t have that kind of money right now. Administrators have to cut more than $7 million from the university’s budget by August.
Whatever the solution is, the board and Deromedi need to correct the problem. We suggest that before trustees and the athletics director make any decision about the turf, they should figure out how to keep the playing field level for the field hockey team.
