In an era of colleges competing for the nation’s best athletes through NIL and showcasing their facilities, sports teams are pulling out all the stops to convince prospective students that their school is the right one for them.
This move by SUNY Morrisville, which is a Division III school located in New York, to install an all-black artificial turf field was supposed to be a bragging right, but has instead turned into the ultimate “what were they thinking” moment.
Sure, the field looks cool and all (reminiscent of Boise State’s famous blue field), but can you imagine how hot that field will be in the dog days of summer? The average temperature in New York’s summer months is still above 80 degrees, so best of luck to all the poor student-athletes reporting to summer workouts in the sweltering heat.
And with all of the severe weather fluctuations lately, like the record temperatures out in Arizona and Nevada, who knows what the temperatures could be like for Fall football in New York. They might have to play all of their games at night on this field:
Now one cool feature of the sports complex, which is called Drake Field, is that it will be multipurpose. You can see on the field that there are all kind of different colored lines, each corresponding to a different sport that will be played on the black turf.
And I just used the word “cool” to describe it, but there really won’t be anything cool (temperature wise) about the artificial turf field. Social media was certainly having a field day with it (pun intended), sending out their concerns:
I wouldn’t even want to know the temperature on this field during camp or the first few games 😓
— Patrick Sweda (@PatrickSweda) July 19, 2023
Feet are going to be on fire
— 💊Medicine Man💉 (@pukeSKYhopper) July 19, 2023
— Breck Wiedenmann (@WiedenmannWeep) July 19, 2023
This sounds incredibly stupid! The heat on that field will be intolerable.
— David Lindsley (@RetProf77) July 19, 2023
putting a black turf in the ny state hotbed is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen
— Bop (@Roller716) July 19, 2023
It’ll be cleat-melter for sure…
The nature of this being a “that’s a good idea and looks cool until it isn’t” type of thing reminds me (for some reason) of the classic comedy film Semi-Pro, where Will Ferrell’s Jackie Moon character convinces his Flint Tropics team to put on eyeliner to “intimidate” the opposing team.
Just like the all-black turf on the football field, the idea should have never left the ground floor:
