INDUSTRY RESOURCES
From the beginning, the authors have enlisted the assistance and expertise of industry colleagues to ensure the best and most accurate content possible. That tradition continues with the fourth edition.
“ Scott McElroy from Auburn helped us write a chapter on robotics technology with mowers and painters,” said Goatley.“ Brad Jakubowski from Penn State helped us with a chapter on weather. Mark Heinlein helped us with hybrid systems.”
The new focus on international offerings presented the authors with some challenges, especially when it came to the sport of cricket.
“ We found a gentleman in Australia named John Shannon who had written about cricket,” said Goatley.“ He jumped on Zoom meetings with us and let us tell him about the book. He helped us write our cricket chapter. We want the expertise of the folks that live in these different parts of world to partner with us on these efforts.”
According to Puhalla, part of the globalization of the book is that the printed book will remain the same, but the authors are looking for experts from other countries to write online chapters describing what’ s different with their local climate, turfgrasses, soils and pests.
For the pest management chapter of the fourth edition, the authors have divided the continental United States into seven regions.
“ I reached out to many industry colleagues and academics and asked them to tell me the most important sports-field-specific pests in their zone,” said Goatley.“ We used this chapter to address all of the pests specific to those seven regions, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. I think that’ s a change our readers are going to appreciate.
“ The pest management chapter in itself could become a book because of all the control methods and materials,” he added.“ But we didn’ t need this book to get larger, so we converted all of our pesticide recommendations into one of our Extension service publications.”
Readers will also appreciate that the fourth edition delves into topics such as autonomous equipment, robotics, and AI.
Said Goatley,“ All aspects of that are going to change so fast that our goal was to make sure we’ ve introduced a subject, talk about where we’ re at, and prep the sports field manager to pay attention. In this age of AI and remote sensing, never forget the importance of what you do because you’ re still going to have to be the ultimate decision maker; but we’ re going to have lots of tools to help us make better decisions. You might as well embrace it, because the AI genie is not going back in the bottle.”
In addition to the other updates, the book also now features a chapter devoted to SFMA.
Said Goatley,“ We’ ve always talked about them, but we asked SFMA to help us write a chapter telling SFMA’ s story and why people should join.”
With its expanded global scope, updated technologies, and expert contributions, the fourth edition continues legacy of one of the most trusted resources in sports field management.
“ Sports Fields: Design, Construction, and Maintenance, Fourth Edition” is available now through Wiley publishing( https:// www. wiley. com / en-us /), Amazon, or via local booksellers. sportsfieldmanagementonline. com May 2026 | SportsField Management
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