ACCESSING THE ARCHIVES
The benefits of computers were detailed in the May 2001 issue. As with other tech-centric articles we have recapped in the past, these articles from more than two decades ago are fun to look at. They shared amazing nuggets like,“ Most folks agree the Internet represents surprising opportunity;”“ E-mailing allows you to send the same message to several people at the same time;” and“ Data collected in the computer can be pulled out to produce reports.”
A special insider’ s peek at the maintenance and care of Wimbledon’ s grass courts was the lead story for June 2001. The article was written by F. E.“ Eddie” Seaward, head groundsman at The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.
“ The vast majority of fans do not realize that The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club is a membership-based club, with tennis being played throughout the year,” Seaward wrote.“ This puts additional requirements on the turf preparation practices. Preparation of the grass courts starts within a few weeks of the Championships, and consists of scarification, deep tine aeration, overseeding and topdressing.”
Soccer was the theme in July. This included Wright National Soccer Campus of the National Soccer Hall of Fame earning STMA Soccer Field of the Year in the Municipal Division; a profile of the soccer fields at Disney’ s Wide World of Sports Complex; and how to assemble the right team to build a soccer complex.
August 2001 highlighted modular turf at Michigan State University( MSU). John“ Trey” Rogers, Ph. D., was part of the team that installed the first high-profile modular turf field for the men’ s World Cup in 1993; and by 2001, Rogers and
his team were working on the first modular field to be seeding instead of sodded. The modular turf system was constructed and seeded in 2001 for planned installation in 2002.
“ Seeding is the number one choice. You get the turf you prefer and establish it the way you want,” said John Hilson, project manager, Clark Companies, Delhi, N. Y.
The September 2001 issue of SportsTurf magazine featured a full redesign of the magazine – not just a graphic design adjustment, but also a switch from a standard size to tabloid format and a productcentric focus throughout. It debuted three“ pillar sections” called In & On the Ground, Around the Grounds, and Maintaining the Grounds, which would each spotlight a particular product segment.
The redesign also included the decision to shift away from photos of fields and playing surfaces, and instead zoom in on athletes and actions on the fields. This was evident with both the November and December 2001 issues( as well as several issues in early 2002).
The October, November and December issues were all heavily product focused under the new format and included a lot of very large product photos throughout, which resulted in scaledback feature stories and very few in-depth articles.
All content for this section is pulled from the SportsTurf / SportsField Management archives, an ongoing cooperative project of EPG Media, SFMA and the Michigan State University Libraries. Public access to the archive from 1985 to the present( less two months) is available at https:// sturf. lib. msu. edu / index. html. sportsfieldmanagementonline. com May 2025 | SportsField Management
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