JANUARY 7, 2006
We
have all just passed through a national rite of passage called Frenzied Football Fever, or the BCS bowl where USC demonstrated their right to claim #1 status for this year.
A collegiate national champion has been crowned and we have had our fill of watching dozens of bowl games on television. The vast majority of those games were played on natural grass, and I got thinking about all of this. The other day I walked by a grass lawn that had a sign on the perimeter that warned not to trespass because the lawn had recently been treated with a chemical. The practice of chemically treating lawns with pesticides, fertilizers, and all sorts of potions from a bottle is widespread. This is a national and internationally epidemic, and millions of gallons of stuff is put on our lawns to make them green.
What about all the grass playing fields across America where our young begin their athletic careers? How many football tackles have resulted in a face plant in the grass that has been treated with some chemical you and I can not pronounce? Johnny and Billy in every town in America is encouraged to play football. Suzie and Wendy all across the country are kicking soccer balls up and down grass fields. Who is monitoring the chemical applications?
Yes, there are alternative products available and there are organic or natural lawn companies, but I wonder about those hundreds of stadium grounds keepers or the vast lawn acreage in our country supervised by some one. Is turf grass grown in a safe manner and if a child were to pick a blade of grass or a football player were to plant his face in the turf would they both be safe? Ask your school where your kids play as a beginning point, and maybe the National Collegiate Athletic Association has a policy for safe playing fields let us hope so.
I enjoyed the games, especially the ones that ended up being competitive, but I would enjoy them more, knowing what kind of fertilizer is on the grass that our young people compete on.
--Peter