I’m not sure when the word “gridiron” became associated with a football field, but I guess it does make some sense. The word is most commonly defined as a “frame of parallel bars or beams, typically in two sets arranged at right angles.”
If you look from above at a football field, you can see the “grid” formation made of white lines, each spaced 10 yards apart, so I get the association. The word, when used in football parlance, carries with it a romantic vibe — “gridiron warriors” sounds cooler than “football warriors,” right? But when it comes to the romance of a sport like football, I fear that we’re losing the effect that defines its true glory and makes football a sport with no peers.
A few years ago, TMB hosted Springfield in a section playoff game. Wet snowflakes were being blown all over the place, and since it wasn’t all that cold out — at least not February cold — it was muddy, too. Real muddy. And it got messier and sloppier as the game went on.
The Panthers lost handily, 50-14. It wasn’t close by the time halftime rolled around. But I won that day, because even though my favorite high school football team took an “L” on that wintry late October Saturday afternoon, it was cool to see the players’ uniforms muddied up enough so you could hardly see the numbers on their backs.
That’s football. You play in the elements (not lightning). Football is the one sport where weather can play a major role in any game. The weather is what makes football football. No, I don’t particularly enjoy freezing my butt off or getting soaked by rain while covering games, but it’s all part of the experience.
It’s OK if Mother Nature is in charge. But things are changing, and if you ask me, not for the better.
Many high school football fields around here have invested in fake grass — you might call it artificial turf. New school buildings today also mean new football fields with artificial turf.
Sure, it’s pretty and perfect and can make a high school football complex more aesthetic. I get that kids probably enjoy feeling like they’re playing at a big-time stadium. And yes, there is no maintenance to worry about. But to me, it just feels … well, fake.
There is no mud on these phony fields. There is no slop. It’s too pristine.
That’s why I appreciate our football/ track complex in Tracy, home to one of the last remaining grass fields in the area.
The local football team has been playing on the current field since 1979. As my former boss, Seth Schmidt, wrote 10 years ago, Tracy’s high school football field has matured into one of the finest high school football venues in the area. I’m pretty sure those at RTR, Lakeview and Canby — schools with new turf fields — will disagree, but I get where Seth was going, and even now, a decade later, he was right. Seating is 1,000% better at the current field than it was when the Scrappers graced the gridiron at a place now known as Sebastian Park. And those trees. My, the trees — the dozens of spruce trees that were originally planted by a man named Earl Lynch. These comely conifers now serve as both a windbreak and as a majestic background setting.
The only drawback compared to those olden days is that the school field is nearly out of town. Back in the day, as Schmidt wrote, people flocked to the field, many of them who simply walked there from their homes from Elm, State and Hollett streets. In the 1930s and ‘40s, football players themselves walked the four blocks from the old high school at Rowland and 3rd to the field.
Talk about the “good old days.” All that has changed, of course, but one thing remains the same — our boys still play on a grass field. You can smell the clippings after it’s mowed, and who doesn’t like that smell?
I know there is the temptation to keep up with the Joneses, but I hope the school district doesn’t someday decide to switch to turf. Losing the blades of grass would be harder to take for me than that muddy, 36-point loss to Springfield.
Tracy’s field is a flip phone in a world of Smartphones. And that’s fine with me.
