Photo Albums

The Field Turf crew is putting the finishing touches on Wabash's new football field. On Tuesday, workers were spreading tons and tons of fine white sand and tiny granulated rubber. Layer after layer will be evenly applied and agitated, and will provide the "cushion" benefit of a Field Turf surface.

Three separate vehicles were spreading the granulated rubber. The trailers work like large fertilizer spreaders. After a layer of rubber has been spread, another tractor with a rotating brush agitates the rubber and sand so that it settles deeply and evenly.

While crews were busy spreading rubber, another crew was resurfacing all of the Owen Huntsman Track's running and vaulting lanes. Here a liquid compound is applied to the long jump runway, after which larger pieces of rubber (about the size of a pencil eraser) will be applied and eventually top-coated.

This photo gives you a sense of the amount of rubber being applied on this particular layer. Many layers will be required before the job is finished.

The masonry work around the base of the new scoreboard has begun. The scoreboard still has two missing pieces -- a top and bottom -- but the message center is working well.

This tractor has a large, rotating brush that effectively stirs up the sand and rubber to help spread it evenly and deeply in the turf.

A smaller vehicle applies the granulated rubber in the harder to reach areas around the sideline and endzones.

A wide shot of the west endzone during the application of the granulated rubber.

Even after just one layer of sand and rubber, the field already feels "softer" under foot. 

Here's a shot of the east endzone. In the lower right corner, you can see some of the white sand that was put down initially and that has not been worked into the turf. In the top center of the photo you can (barely) see the huge piles of sand and bags of rubber still to be applied.

In this shot, you can see the rubber being applied while the roller brush works the rubber deep into the turf.

Another shot of the workers top-coating the runway for the long jump and triple jump.