MSU students and professors will bring a bit of Spartan Stadium to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games this summer by helping to create a portable turf field for the event's main stadium.
The Virginia-based GreenTech, a company that builds athletic field systems, has been working alongside crop and soil sciences professors Trey Rogers and James Crum and graduate students Matt Anderson and Tim VanLoo. Later this month, Rogers and VanLoo will join Anderson, who is already constructing the field in Greece.
"It will be a carbon copy of Spartan Stadium - except bigger," Rogers said. "The MSU field is 4,800 modules of turf. The field in Greece is around 6,000 modules of turf, using the same GreenTech modules we used at Spartan Stadium."
Olympic athletes will use the portable turf field in soccer and field events.
Modules are large trays of soil in which grass is grown and then pushed together to form a field. A football field is approximately 53 yards wide and 120 yards long, while a soccer field is approximately 70 yards wide and 110 yards long.
When transported, the field is broken up into modules, loaded onto a flatbed truck, then unloaded at its destination and reassembled.
Olympic officials looked at MSU's track record before selecting it to build the field. MSU also designed and constructed a field for the 1994 World Cup at the Pontiac Silverdome, in addition to the portable football field in Spartan Stadium.
"We were hired to help them make it a successful project, since we've done this kind of thing before," VanLoo said. "A soccer field is bigger than a football field. We'll simply help bring it together and show people any kind of shortcuts they don't know."
With research and testing beginning months ahead of time, students and professors visited Greece in December to survey the conditions and find the specific grass and soil to use in the construction.
"You can't snap fingers and easily import any kind of grass," Rogers said. "We had to look around and find it over there. It's like shopping for an automobile - we went shopping for soil and grass."
What the students and professors found as the most practical choice was Bermuda grass, a type of grass that could withstand the weather, as well as the wear and tear of the sports that are to be played on it. The lush grass can't normally be found in Michigan because it grows in hot weather - temperatures have to be at least 80 to 90 degrees.
Besides durability, the turf field needed to be easily movable, especially within the time allotted - three days. The Athens 2004 Olympic Games opening ceremonies will be held in the stadium on Aug. 13, with the games commencing Aug. 17.
"We only have 72 hours to move the field in," VanLoo said. "My guess is that there will be three shifts working around the clock. I estimate 35-50 people total helping to move it into the stadium."
As a top candidate for the job, MSU's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences program will benefit from the added on-site experience, Rogers said.
"It will continue to benefit our program," Rogers said. "This is not just classroom theory. A lot of students can see this stuff put into practice."
Representing not only MSU, but also the country, U.S. soccer spokesman Jim Moorhouse said this is a great opportunity to show the world the significant role America will play in the Olympics this summer.
"It's great to see American soccer ingenuity playing out on the grand stage like the Olympics," Moorhouse said. "Whether it's about building fields or building a good team, this will help the reputation of American soccer."
