UTEP cutting grass and going with all artificial turf

In a move designed to save money over the long term, the UTEP athletic department has decided to cut grass out completely and go with artificial turf on all of its outdoor athletic fields at a cost of two million dollars.

When the Miners tee it up at the Sun Bowl next season, they’ll do it on a new state-of-the-art FieldTurf surface, replacing the old turf. They’ll also no longer practice on real grass, deciding instead to install FieldTurf on Glory Field and at University Field, where the women’s soccer team practices and plays.

“It’s just been so hard to grow grass here,” said Chris Park, senior associate athletic director at UTEP. “We’ve struggled. Just so much money goes into consultants and having to re-sod. It was just a smart financial move for the university to put in the artificial (football practice) field, that’s going to mirror the Sun Bowl field. So the team will practice on the same field they play on on Saturday’s.”

In an effort to prevent injuries, back in 2000, then UTEP football coach Gary Nord turned Glory Field into the lush green real grass practice field that UTEP had never had. It’s not so green anymore, however, it will now be FieldTurf, used by 22 of 32 NFL teams and hundreds of universities, including the University of Texas and Notre Dame.”

“They were in pretty rough shape and it was time to either make a drastic change with how we managed the grass field, how we invested in it, or we just go artificial turf,” said UTEP compliance director David Kooger, who indicated it cost more than $100,000 a year to maintain each grass field. “It made sense to go with artificial turf. It makes the most sense going green. We won’t have to waste our money on the water going forward. Economically we save so much money in the long term.”

ABC-7 pointed out that turf can be tougher on the legs and when it comes to injuries.

“Yeah,” Kooger said. “There are studies out there, though, that say you don’t get any more injured on artificial turf than you do on natural grass.”

UTEP Athletic Director Bob Stull and football coach Sean Kugler were out of town and not available for comment.

All three fields will feature CoolPlay, a surface Kooger says maintains a temperature 40 degrees cooler. He said the Sun Bowl FieldTurf will cost about $400,000, but Glory Field and University Field will cost about $800,000 each because drainage must be installed.