CANTON, Ga. — This fall, all six high schools in the Cherokee County School District will be playing on new synthetic turf fields.
After a competitive proposal process, Cherokee County chose Sports Turf Company, Inc. to complete the renovations. The board made their decision after extensive research showed AstroTurf’s synthetic turf system provided exceptional annual cost of ownership, met rigorous demands for player safety, would significantly reduce maintenance demands, and would be durable to hold up longer for use by football, soccer and lacrosse programs.
Also weighing in the decision was Sports Turf Company’s twenty-six year history as a leader in athletic facility construction and renovation. Sports Turf Company counts four Certified Field Builders and two Certified Track Builders on staff. This certification by American Sports Builders Association means Sports Turf Company is among the most qualified specialty sports contractors in the country, expertise that far exceeds the demands of this project.
District spokesman Barbara Jacoby spoke on the decision saying, “Through this installation, the Cherokee County School District will avoid significant annual maintenance costs and will increase safety for players, while also evening the playing field for our student athletes in competitive divisions.”
Fields at the school district’s six high schools —Cherokee, Creekview, Etowah, River Ridge, Sequoyah and Woodstock — are all included in the project. In total, 535,166 square feet of synthetic turf will be installed before football season kicks off this fall. The field at Etowah is a replacement field, while the other five are conversions of existing natural grass fields and include demolition, new construction and surfacing of existing track events within the boundaries of the fields.
Covering all six fields will be AstroTurf’s RootZone 3D3 Blend Decade, a performance turf system that combines slit film and monofilament fibers for optimum durability and visual appeal. It is highlighted by AstroTurf’s RootZone sub-layer, a texturized fiber that stabilizes infill and improves shock absorbency.
Sports Turf Company’s Scott Powers explains, “When you see rubber spray out on other fields, that is a side effect of older technology fields. It is unfortunate that many owners are wooed by fancy marketing to think these systems are the best, when in reality they are based on a design from the 1990’s. When these popular systems are spun at high revolutions per minute in a centrifuge type device they lose 75.4% of their infill. By comparison, AstroTurf’s Rootzone fields in the same test lose only 19.3% of infill. Cherokee County did their homework. They realized that keeping this infill in place means less maintenance and more consistent footing for orthopedic safety of young athletes.”
Cherokee’s RootZone 3D3 Blended Fiber system is truly a performance turf with 60 ounces of fiber and a 10-year warranty backed by an annual AstroTurf maintenance plan. The TrionicTM fibers revolutionize turf systems by fusing PE (polyethylene) and nylon on a molecular level, into an ultra-durable fiber that wears up to 50 percent better.
This turf system will provide exceptional force reduction to reduce incidence of concussions and cleat interaction that better replicates well-maintained natural grass playing fields to reduce incidence of injuries to lower extremities. These fields raise the bar for performance, safety, playability and durability of synthetic turf fields in the southeast and do so at a price point that demonstrates how serious Cherokee County School District officials are about fiscal responsibility.
