Friendly Turf

We know Mike Price to be an enthusiastic guy. Even when it comes to fake grass.

“I can’t say enough about this new turf,” he said. “Now the kids enjoy practicing on this turf because it’s soft and protective. I think it’s going to help us prevent injuries and win football games.”

Hey, if only that were part of the warranty.

But just knowing that Washington State’s head football coach felt strongly enough to say it has to be an encouraging sign, right?

Surely, there couldn’t be a better harbinger for Cougar football 2000 than …

Oh, wait. That’s what Price said about the turf which was installed at Martin Stadium in 1990. Sorry. Wrong notebook.

Here’s what we’re looking for - Price on the new surface that was stretched across the floor of Martin Stadium and the neighboring Rogers Field practice facility this summer:

“Obviously, it’s wonderful,” he said. “The players love it. I really think it will cut down injuries. It could cut down the injury factor by 50 percent during our games at home.”

Surely, there couldn’t be a better harbinger for Cougar football 2000 than … OK, OK, you get the idea. You pony up for new carpeting - in your rec room as well as your living room - and you’re not going to poor-mouth it before you’ve even spilled a paper cup of Gatorade on it.

Every time a new rug goes down at a stadium, it’s always a vast improvement on the previous one. Quicker, grabbier, softer - the closest thing yet to real grass, without the divots and the outlay for Weed-and-Feed.

And maybe this time it’s true.

The new FieldTurf at WSU is not your father’s artificial turf (back when the concept was considered so “space age” that the only appropriate name was “Astroturf”). Rub a blade of it between your fingers and it’s slick, like the cellophane on a hors d’oeuvre toothpick. Poke deeper into the weave and feel the give of the cushy granules of ground-up Nikes and Firestones - does this qualify as corporate sponsorship? - that surround each blade. It’s the most far-out hybrid since Bill Murray was growing Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent and Southern California sinsemilla at Bushwood Country Club.

Try it. Lay out for a Jason Gesser pass. Go ahead.

“Even when we’re just doing skelly (pass drills), we’re out there diving for balls,” said co-captain Farwan Zubedi during the players’ informal workouts this summer. “You’d never think of diving on that old stuff unless you absolutely had to.”

Seeing as he’s turning 60 in less than a month, defensive coordinator Bill Doba isn’t diving on anything short of a Serta. But if he had to, this might be the stuff.

“They say - whoever `they’ are - that it’s safer than regular sod,” Doba said. “You know what was most impressive to me? They put it right over dirt. They didn’t have to put down a layer of blacktop to even it out.”

So it’s built for comfort. Is it built for speed?

“Faster than grass, not as fast as Astroturf,” Price said.

Zubedi isn’t convinced.

“I think it’s faster than the turf we had,” he said. “You can cut, break, stop on a dime. I feel way faster, anyway.”

And it’s actually green - pretty green, not the washed-out institutional green we’re used to. But as with any recruiting class, the proof is five years down the line. Wazzu has had - either through penury or acts of God or just bad luck - a somewhat pitiful history when it comes to artificial turf, which makes you wonder why the 74 seasons the Cougars played on the real stuff were dismissed so cavalierly.

The first rug - Astroturf - went down in 1972, when Martin was erected in the wake of the fire that destroyed old Rogers Field. That field lasted until 1979, when Sam Jankovich brokered what seemed to be a hell of a deal with a new outfit, Superturf. It was suggested the deal was so good because his allies lobbied Spokane to buy the same carpet for Albi Stadium, though Sam and the supplier always denied it.

In any case, the deal wasn’t so great. The pad underneath the Superturf eventually fossilized, producing a cushioning effect roughly the equivalent to that of a Tidyman’s parking lot. The company’s scientists blamed the ash bath from Mount St. Helens, which was inventive if nothing else. For a time, the Cougs tried to use the brutal turf in psychological warfare, hanging a sign over the players’ tunnel advertising the joint as the most unforgiving sward on the planet. Unthinkingly, it was left up during recruiting visits, too. Finally, the complaints grew too loud to ignore.

“I think it was inferior the day it was put in,” roared then-coach Jim Walden - who, alas, kept those feelings to himself on the day it actually was put in.

WSU and Superturf split - well, sort of - the cost of replacement in 1984, but it was hardly an improvement. By 1990, the Cougs were in the market for yet another rug and hit on Omniturf, a sand-based product - which, over time, felt more like a sandpaper-based product.

“That stuff used to just kill us,” Zubedi said.

And now there’s this stuff - the hottest seller on the artificial market. Nebraska did its house up in FieldTurf. Nevada, Tulsa, Tropicana Field, Abu Dhabi - all have gone the crushed-rubber route. Seahawks owner Paul Allen - a WSU alum - just installed it for the University of Washington, his NFL team’s temporary home.

(Let’s see - he rents out Eastern Washington for training camp and buys UW new shag. Educating software millionaires is really paying off for Wazzu, isn’t it?)

Actually, if anybody sold the Cougs on FieldTurf, it may have been their current athletic director, Jim Sterk. His old school, Portland State, was the first to put down FieldTurf on a practice facility.

“We sold so many fields,” Sterk said. “Mike and Rick Dickson were up on my field at PSU last year. (Oregon athletic director) Bill Moos was up there. If I’d been smart, I’d have gotten a percentage. The FieldTurf people love me.”

And the Cougars love it. For now.

“The players say they really like it,” Doba noted. “Of course, we haven’t been in full contact yet and some kid hasn’t gotten beaten out because he slipped when he cut.”

But when that happens, at least only his pride will hurt.