Free Press photo by John Cross
Workers laid the sod inside Blakeslee Stadium earlier this summer as part of a near half-million dollar renovation. The new surface will be used for the first time this weekend during a Minnesota Vikings practice.
When fans file into Blakeslee Stadium over these next two weeks to watch Vikings practice, they’re not going to notice many changes.
The concrete stands are the same, there’s still a goal post on each end of the field and the grass remains green. If you happened to drive by the stadium over the last few months, however, you know that a lot has been going on.
“We basically rebuilt the field from the bottom up,” said Larry Kohanek, Minnesota State Mankato's director for planning and construction. “The fans might not notice a big difference but the players certainly will.”
The players, of course, are the members of the Minnesota State Mankato football team. For these next two weeks, however, the players are the Minnesota Vikings who are about to begin their annual training camp in Mankato.
Marty Rost, the project manager for the turf undertaking, said the entire surface of the field was stripped away and the under drainage on the field was all reconstructed. That should enable the field to drain better and allow water to get out more quickly.
“We put in a sand peat root zone mix,” Rost said. “After that was all in place, we sodded the field. We had to get that done by a certain date or the Vikings would have torn up the turf right away.”
As the construction crew was redoing the surface, it took care to make even grades across the entire field. Most football fields have a crown in the middle that gently slopes to the sidelines but before this project was initiated, MSU’s surface was way out of whack.
“It was like an oval-shaped island running north to south out there before,” Kohanek said. “You’d start getting close to the end zone and it would completely flatten out.
“All the grade was lost. Then you’d get into the end zone and it would drop about a foot. Now the elevation and drop throughout the field is uniform.”
In addition to the field itself, the construction crew redid the electrical system for the 30-second clocks and erected new goal posts.
New fences were also put in place. The total cost of the project was just under $500,000.
Vikings’ head coach Brad Childress says he welcomes the improvements.
“I thought (the previous surface) was uneven and kind of moundy,” he said. “The greatest investment you can make with professional athletes is the surface they play on.
“Everything they do is surface-related, with ankles and knees. You don’t want to have a fall that didn’t need to happen.”
For the complete Free Press story, click on http://mankatofreepress.com/sports/x1446650091/Vikings-players-coaches-working-with-a-new-surface
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