FIELD OF THE YEAR SCHOOLS AND PARKS FOOTBALL
SportsField Management ( SFM ): Congratulations on the Field of the Year win . What are you most proud of with this win , and / or what do you think stands out most about the winning field ? Zachary Horsley : Thank you very much ! It was a great exercise and experience . What am I most proud of this win ? When I decided that I ’ d like to enter this field for FOY , I had no idea I was going to lose half my bermudagrass to winterkill . In the middle of growing all that back in , we had an Independence Day event with thousands of people in attendance on the field in the rain that nearly ruined it . I went from trying to win an award to just trying to save the field to offer a safe playing surface on August 1 when football players reported . It was a mad dash to the finish , but thankfully we were able to get it all grown in and provide an exceptional surface for the athletes .
SFM : What attracted you to a career in sports field management , and what has been your career path through the industry ?
Horsley : When I first started in the green industry , I was a landscaper . A lifelong Atlanta Braves fan , I knew that Turner Field , back then , didn ’ t just magically appear perfect every day ; there were men and women working hard to make that happen . However , the idea of an entire industry specifically designed for working on sports fields never occurred to me . I remember seeing pictures of the Braves grounds crew one day and wishing I could have a job like that .
That ’ s about when my current boss , Brian Hinkley , CSFM , noticed my work on the landscape crew at Liberty University and offered me a position on his sports turf crew . It all kind of clicked at that point , and I was hooked . I started spending every second I could learning about this industry and studying turfgrass . I ’ ve never worked in this industry anywhere else . Liberty University has been my only home so far , and a lot of that is a result of the family atmosphere we share on our crew . We spend more time together at work than we do with our own families most of the year , and somehow we ’ ve never killed each other , so that ’ s a pretty special bond .
14 SportsField Management | April 2023 sportsfieldmanagementonline . com