From the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin 2/6/2007
Forks athletes to benefit from solid footing, community to use fields, too
By Kevin Stevens
Press & Sun-Bulletin
Come autumn of 2008, should all go according to tentative plan, another Broome County school district will have an artificial athletic playing surface in place.
Voters in the Chenango Forks district last week approved a $10.9 million capital project that includes better than $2 million worth of athletics-related upgrades: A synthetic turf field with new bleachers on the home side; re-surfacing of the running track; soccer and lacrosse fields; reconstruction and irrigation; softball and baseball fencing and backstop replacement; varsity softball dugouts; and replacement of portable bleachers.
Most visible will be a FieldTurf surface on the primary playing field, which will provide community-wide opportunity to make use of a suitable playing venue regardless of weather conditions, from the youth level on up.
For the most visible and most-decorated users of the field, Section 4's six-time defending Section 4 football champions, it should mean among other assets zero play-calling dictated by the unpredictable footing of a surface beaten up by a collaboration of Mother Nature and regular use.
Matt Faughnan, a University at Albany freshman who started three varsity football seasons for the Blue Devils, recalls his sophomore season and a 13-7 playoff semifinal squeeze past Whitney Point on a nasty Forks track, followed a week later by smooth efficiency exhibited in a 35-7 blitz of Norwich on the user-friendly FieldTurf of Binghamton Alumni Stadium.
"Once you can actually run and move around, it allows you to open up the playbook a little bit," said Faughnan, twice a first-team all-state tackle. "Of course, with Mr. Green, that means running a smash instead of a lead, and maybe passing every 100th play."
Good-natured jab at conservative Blue Devils coach Kelsey Green aside, installation of an artificial surface in place of one that had precious little tolerance for inclement weather will provide for playing conditions the Devils have done largely without until they've made their way into postseason play.
"Physical education classes will get a lot of use out of it," said David Hogan, Forks director of athletics. "Boys and girls soccer teams and boys and girls lacrosse teams will be able to play on it. It'll be a multi-use field.
"We'll get a whole lot more use out of the field. We'll have somebody on that field most every afternoon and evening."
Dan Kozlowski, who coached Forks' varsity boys lacrosse team the last two seasons, oversaw regular March practice sessions indoors, which prohibited the players from honing skills that would require more space than the indoor facility offered. The new field figures to lend itself to superior preseason preparation, and ideally during hours preferable to 7-9 p.m. sessions.
"It'll open up a whole new practice regime," he said. As for on-field performance, he added, "It'll be a faster game on that surface. Picking up ground balls will be much smoother."
Forks' lacrosse team, Kozlowski said, played just three or so games each of the last two years on the main field-- in 2005 so as not to beat up the venue where graduation ceremonies had been scheduled, and last season because superstitious players chose to play on the plateaued field above the main field.
Faughnan, erstwhile lacrosse goaltender, called it "an awesome opportunity," for reasons other than unpleasant memories of bounced shots making him look silly when they'd take crazy caroms off battered ground into the net despite his sound positioning.
"With our field, the first two games could be fine," he said of the football season. "Then, after a rainy day and you get the JV's out there, it was pretty much chewed up the rest of the season.
"With upstate New York weather, it can be like this year where it was near 70 degrees Christmas Day or there might be snow in October."
Green remembers vividly Forks' final home football game of 2006, when, against Elmira Notre Dame, the Blue Devils called upon neither the forward pass nor a single pitch after rain had made for a nasty mess of a playing field. He also cited a playoff game Forks had earned the right to host, but instead volunteered to switch it to Binghamton Alumni Stadium because of the poor condition of the field.
"(The new surface) will be in great shape, no matter the weather," he said. "And around here, you can get almost anything from monsoons to heat that makes it rock-hard to the point you can almost hear the grass break when you land on it."
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