When the Iowa State athletic players take the field, they know they don't have to worry about the quality of the surface they are playing on, thanks to the hard work of Mike Andresen and his ground crew. Andresen came to ISU on April 10 after spending five years with the Iowa Cubs in Des Moines. Andresen, who serves as the athletic turf manager at ISU, became interested in this line of work back in high school. It takes a little more skill than your basic lawn mowing tactics, however.
Any person can mow grass, but doing it properly is another matter.
Andresen finds that there are plenty of details that he has to tend to every day. Much of this is due to the new grass field at Cyclone Stadium. In the past couple weeks, Andresen and his crew have been putting in 12 hours each work day to get the field ready for the upcoming season. The crew has been working hard since day one, as they got the last roll of the natural surface laid down on May 7. It is a sand-based field, which meant that all of the sand has to be specified, as well as the peat that went into the field.