By Marty Gordon
Over four inches of rain fell in less than two hours Saturday during the Virginia Tech and Purdue football game.
Throw in heavy lightning throughout the area, and the game was delayed for over five hours.
The teams took the field around 6:30 p.m. for a 12-noon game after storms moved out of the area.
While the players were able to dry their uniforms, questions remained on what the conditions of the field would be.
Virginia Tech officials had no doubt the field would not be a slippery surface, like other games were struggling with on Saturday afternoon.
The secret weapon was the GreenTech’s ITM system. GreenTech is a Georgia-based turf company that had installed the state-of-the-art collection system, which allows up to 16 inches of drainage per hour.
Trays were installed below the field surface with pumps throughout field. Saturday, a portable pump sat on the Purdue sidelines, pulling water from underneath and then to a nearby drain.
Lane earned the distinction of becoming the first collegiate football facility in the nation to install this Integrated Turf Management (ITM) system. Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey had previously installed the system with lots of success.
After a 2001 regular season football game against Georgia Tech was rained out, Virginia Tech decided to look into a new drainage system. So, the school installed an unusual “tray catching system.”
Worsham Field received top-of-the-line natural grass turf, drainage, an air vacuum and blower system, and remote monitoring and control of field conditions and maintenance procedures at a cost of $1.3 million.
According to background from the initial installation, the GreenTech’s tray system allows for athletic field turf to be cultivated off-site because each tray contains the soil and breathability needed for grass to grow.
The system on the playing field, one of only two such modular fields in the country, is composed of 4,224 46-inch by 46-inch trays of sod positioned above asphalt. In conjunction with a portable vacuum pump, the playing surface stays dry even during heavy rain.
According to an article in Lawn and Landscape shortly after the installation, the company said each tray is composed of five inches of gravel in the base followed by eight inches of sand, and then the sand is covered by soil and a layer of Patriot bermudagrass sod.
Saturday, the system worked and there was a football game played five hours later.
