The Alcoa Board of Education on Tuesday approved spending $792,720 to replace artificial turf after the surface of Goddard Field scored poorly on tests for shock absorption. Goddard Field is used by multiple Alcoa Middle and High school sports programs.
The spending from the Alcoa City Schools fund balance, previously undesignated funds, includes $750,108 for the football field and $42,612 for a turf area outside the Alcoa High School weight room.
The approval comes nearly four months after Alcoa High Athletic Director Josh Stephens told school board and city officials at a joint meeting that the field likely wouldn’t pass another impaction test.
The school board is hiring Hellas Construction Inc. for the job, the same company Blount County hired recently for turf projects on the Eagleton, Heritage and William Blount campuses. Alcoa plans to use a cooperative contract for Hellas through Sourcewell, which does not require a competitive bid.
Stephens told The Daily Times Wednesday that the company expects to be on campus in the next two to three weeks, and the work is expected to take 30-40 days, depending on weather.
‘Might not pass’
Stephens told the newspaper that the field had been cleaned and tested every two years. In summer 2021 Kormac LLC did the work and warned about the condition. According to the athletic director, the company said that “it was very likely the next time that it might not pass.”
He opted to have the field cleaned in 2023 but not tested.
Stephens addressed the issue during an Oct. 23, 2023, meeting with school and city officials.
“As soon as we get it tested and it fails, we’re sitting here on a product that we know can’t pass the impaction test,” Stephens said at the meeting. “I feel like we’re probably liable a little bit knowing that we’ve had it down 10 years, but we don’t have a failing score.”
During the discussion about the possible cost, he told them, “Heaven forbid we get into a litigation because of an accident and we know that it won’t pass a compaction test and we knowingly put thousands and thousands of kids on that field.”
Stephens also told them the field was “beautiful” and “I’d play on it until it’s as hard as Lodge Street as far as I’m concerned.”
January test
Alcoa had the field tested in January by Sports Labs. A “Condition Assessment Report” dated Jan. 24 shows the biggest problem on the measure for preventing head injuries.
The assessment calculated Critical Fall Height, with an industry standard recommendation of 1.3 meters. Problems with this measure suggest a higher risk for critical injury from direct head-to-surface impact, according to an explanation of assessment reports on the company website. The Goddard Field turf showed a mean result of 1.08 on the Head Injury Criterion from 10 positions, with the lowest 0.53 and the highest 1.23.
Sports Labs shows results on a scale of red, yellow and green, and Alcoa’s field also scored in the red to yellow area on the Shock Absorption assessment.
“Their suggestion was to close the field for all competition,” Stephens said of the January result.
Goddard Field’s surface is a training area for the Alcoa track and field programs in the spring as the system has no track facility. Stephens said arrangements have been made for Alcoa students to practice at Maryville Junior High School while work is done on the field surface.
Alcoa was one of the first school systems in the region to install artificial turf, and Stephens said in October, “This year we will not play on a natural grass field at all.”
Maryville High School installed artificial turf in 2012 and Alcoa in 2014, according to previous reporting from The Daily Times.
Stephens told the city and school officials that in a perfect word he would say grass is the best surface, but it can’t hold up to the more than 20 programs that use Goddard Field for training, practice areas and competitions.
“Daylight to dark there’s somebody out there on the turf,” he said. The uses include recess for the nearby schools, youth sports and band competitions.
He estimated this week that it might take 10 natural grass fields to accommodate all the activities that the artificial turf of Goddard Field hosts. The new turf should be ready for the high school’s graduation in May.
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