George Toma: Groundskeeper Emeritus

Jan. 2001

This story was written in Jan. 2001 right ahead of the Super Bowl game in Tampa Bay.)

(First of 2 Parts)

Groundskeeper emeritus George Toma had been the man in charge of field preparations for the Super Bowl for all of the event's 35 years.

The story of how that responsibility developed goes back to 1965, the year the AFL and NFL merged. While making a visit to Kansas City prior to a regular season game in mid-November, then NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was asked at a press conference about the difference between the two leagues. He answered that there probably wasn't much difference in the players, but that there was in one of the fields. He said he had never seen a more beautiful, more perfect turf football field than the one in Kansas City.

Those comments made the national news wires and the following Monday, Tex Schramm, President and General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys, was on the phone to Jack Steadman of the Kansas City Chiefs, to ask if he could borrow Toma to have him prepare the Cotton Bowl field for an upcoming game between the Cleveland Browns and Cowboys.

Toma, who was the Chief's head groundskeeper, quickly transformed the Cotton Bowl turf in to a topflight field. As a result, he was asked back in late December to again get the field ready for the January 1 Cotton Bowl game between Georgia and Southern Methodist University, which was on a Saturday, and for the NFC Championship game between the Cowboys and Green Bay Packers the next day.

Green Bay won the game and advanced to the first Super Bowl. So did Toma, who fresh from his accomplishments on the Cotton Bowl turf, was invited by the NFL to go to Los Angeles to prepare the field for the game. For the record, Green Bay defeated Kansas City, 35-10.

Now 72 and retired for several years from his jobs as the head groundskeeper at both the Arrowhead and Royals stadiums in Kansas City, Toma continues to perform the job of getting the playing surfaces ready for the Super Bowl and for the Pro Bowl, too.

As a lifelong groundskeeper, Toma has worked on a number of sports fields throughout the country and around the world, including those for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He's been named to Kansas City's "Walk of Stars" for top sports figures and even to the "All Madden Team." In his honor, the Sports Turf Management Association presents the George Toma Golden Rake Award for dedication and performance each year to an outstanding young groundskeeper.

Preparations for Super Bowl XXXV (in 2001) at Tampa Bay were not limited to just spreading the six loads of a 90-10 blend of sand and Dakota Peat that Toma had brought in to level off the Richard James Stadium field. His role in getting ready for the game - and for all of Super Bowl week - included preparing the four practice fields that were used along with that of the Raymond James Stadium.

"At Tampa Bay, the NFC practiced on the Buccaneers' two practice fields. Tampa Bay groundskeeper Rob Juliard does a good job with them," Toma says.

But the fields at the University of South Florida, where the AFC practiced, had to be completely rebuilt, including new drainage and irrigation. Toma took on that job after coming back from a nine-month project at the University of Hawaii where he supervised a game field overhaul for Coach June Jones.

Of the reworking of Raymond James Stadium, Toma says, "We took everything off and completely redid it with a 90-10 mix of sand and peat. They have a lot of events there. . . rock concerts, tractor pulls and, of course, a lot of football games. They have an excellent ground crew at Tampa," he says. "We got it all sodded and fertilized on January 9 with about 90 tons of a 90-10 mix of sand and Dakota Peat."

The days before the Super Bowl are extremely busy, Toma notes. Commercial shoots begin a couple weeks before the game. Advance rehearsals included those for the John Madden Show so CBS can check out its equipment and a game test involving some local high schools.

Of Super Bowl week, Toma says: "The Sunday before the game, they have half-time rehearsal with a stage that weighs 22 tons and that has to be moved into place in about three minutes. They practice the show for 8-10 hours. On Monday, we get to work on the field some but there is a lot of other activity, too, with people there to check out lighting, sound systems, etc. Tuesday is always a bad day for us because there are about 3,000 press on the field in the morning for interviews with one team and another 3,000 there in the afternoon for the other team."

"Wednesday, we have the field a little bit again, but on Thursday there is from 10 to 12 hours of half-time rehearsal involving as many as 6,250 people all of whom are on the field. Friday is the pre-game show rehearsal, with people on the field for another 8 to 10 hours. Saturday both teams have the field to workout. We have to grow grass, cut it and do everything you have to do to get the field ready through all of that. Our crew is hand-picked and represent some of the best grounds crew in the business."

As one of the top groundskeepers in the country, Toma has been asked to work on a number of problem fields. One of the worst situations, he says, was a few years ago at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

"It was a mess. They had the city's ground crew out there - the called them the 'sod squad' - between plays to try to tamp the sod back in place during games. When we came in, the field was so bad that we had no choice but to arrange to re-sod it right down the center. But the sod-cutters out in that area of California wouldn't cut the sod the way we wanted it. We wanted the sod to include from 1.5 to 2 inches of topsoil and none of the cutters would do it that way," Toma says.

In desperation, city officials arranged to cut sod from the field at old Kezar Stadium and have it brought to Candlestick.

"It wasn't a blue grass; it was a grass called kukuya. When we put it down on Candlestick, a lot of agronomists from around the country and a lot of the writers, too, were saying that the young kid doesn't know what he's doing; that it would never work out."

"But what they didn't know," Toma says, "was that we had a test plot on the field for the game the week before. It rained like heck that game. The 49ers were playing the Houston Oilers who had a big back in Earl Campbell. He plowed through that test plot all day without any problems at all."

"So, we got the Candlestick field ready and painted, and right before the game it's raining. The field wasn't covered, but it performed beautifully and the fans in the stands gave the ground crew an ovation."

"The next week was the championship game. Again it was raining. There had been mud slides in San Francisco; they even closed the Golden Gate Bridge because of the winds and rain. San Francisco had a great mayor out there then, Dianne Feinstein. I called her Gen. Patton. The grounds crew was down in the dumps because of the weather and from getting all kinds of heat, but she came down there in her boots and raincoat to talk to them when they were working . . . just like Gen. Patton going up to the front to visit the troops."

"Again, the field was great and the fans in the stands gave the ground crew another rousing ovation."

In the 1980's, Toma was asked to improve the field at William Jewell College, where the Chiefs trained. "We had grown good grass and had an excellent field, but when it rained, it didn't drain well. So, they wanted us to update it. We had a $44,000 budget to put in drainage and irrigation on two fields. I spent $50,000 and got my fanny chewed for going $6,000 over the budget. But the fields came out beautiful. Joe Mackovic was the coach and in those days they had 125 to 150 players in camp. It rained 4.75 inches one time and Mackovic was out there practicing the next day without any problems. At that time, we still had artificial turf at Arrowhead Stadium and with a quarter inch of rain we had to bring out $100,000 worth of water removal equipment to get it dried out."

A devoted advocate of Dakota Peat, Toma became acquainted with the product when that $50,000 practice field was being constructed. "We used a 90-10 mix of sand and Dakota Peat. The field that we built for $50,000 worked better than some of the million dollar fields that are out there today," he says. "The Chiefs practiced on it, the William Jewell football team practiced and played on it, the Liberty High School team played on it, soccer and track used it and still there was always grass on it."

Later, Toma built two other practice fields for the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium while working in conjunction with Dr. James R. Watson. "They're still working great. They had 90 percent sand and 10 percent Dakota Peat. We used a 16-inch layer of that material."

A stickler for detail, Toma insists on getting exactly the mix that has been ordered. Many of the problems with fields in the NFL and elsewhere, he notes, are the result of poor soil testing and inaccurate mixes, or mixes in which the percentage of peat was accidentally or even intentionally reduced.

(Second of 2 parts)

While the ride has been a good one, George Toma, now 72 and recognized as one of the best ever at developing and resurrecting playing field turf, didn't have a spectacular start in the business.

Born in the coal-mining town of Edwardsville in northeastern Pennsylvania, he had to grow up quickly.

"My father, who had been hurt in the mines, died when I was eight years old. In those days, when you were 10 years old, you started working in the breakers picking rock and slate out of coal. But after my dad had gotten hurt there, I would never go near the place. So, at 10 years old I started working on a vegetable farm at 10 cents an hour for 10 hours a day, six days a week."

The next year, Toma worked on a chicken farm at 50 cents a day. "They gave you lunch and two chickens for the weekend dinner table," he remembers. At 12, a neighbor, Stan Sheckler, who was the groundskeeper for the Wilkes-Barre Barons of the Class A Eastern Baseball League, asked him to help out at the ballpark.

"I would work with him dragging the infield and cutting the grass. In those days, they had the reel type push mowers," Toma says. He worked with Barons through the next four summers and, at the age of 16, became the head groundskeeper.

In 1947 at the age of 18, Toma was sent by Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians and of several of its minor league clubs including Wilkes-Barre, to a deactivated Naval air station at Driver, VA. There, he worked with Emil Bossard, Cleveland's head groundskeeper, to convert the station into a spring training site with several fields. The barracks were used to house the ballplayers. In each of the next two years, Toma helped convert military bases at Marianna, Fla., and at Daytona Beach, Fla., into spring training sites. Bossard became Toma's idol; still is today. "Nobody will ever be able to shine Emil Bossard's shoes," he says.

After serving his country during the Korean War from 1950-1952, Sgt. First Class Toma returned to Wilkes-Barre. The baseball team had been moved to Reading, Pa., and Hank Greenberg, who was the farm director for the Indians, told Toma he was being sent there. "But, I told him I wasn't going because my best friend was the groundskeeper there," Toma says. "He was married with a family. I wasn't going to take his job."

Greenberg countered with an offer for Toma to go to a new ballpark at Sherbrooke, Quebec, in the Canadian-American League. Toma accepted that position. He later returned to Wilkes-Barre for a short time when the city got another minor league team, before taking the groundskeeper job with Cleveland's AAA team in the International League at Buffalo, NY in 1955.

When the Buffalo team was sold in 1957, Toma moved to Charleston, WV, a Detroit Tigers team also in the International League. While there, John McHale, president and general manager of the Tigers, called one day to say that the Tigers had given Kansas City permission to talk to Toma about a job with the Athletics.

But before he was contacted by the Athletics, Toma put in a call to his old friend and mentor, Emil Bossard. "He told me, 'George, don't' go there. I'm consulting there for Lou Boudreau and it's a tough situation. In the springtime, it rains so much it will flood you out. In the summer, it gets so hot it will bake you out.' He advised me to stay out of Kansas City," Toma says.

Not fully heeding that advice, Toma, who was also being courted for a job with the Denver Bears, made arrangements to travel west. His plan called for him to spend one day in Kansas City to look over the situation there and another in Denver. The Bears job was to be a one-year position that would lead to a promotion to Yankee Stadium the next season.

Weighing the two offers, Toma came to this conclusion: "Kansas City was a bad situation and I was young, so I thought, if I went there and messed it up nobody would ever know it. So, I took the job."

But by the Fourth of July, Toma had the field in top shape. Some were even calling it the best in baseball. New job offers came from a number of clubs. Casey Stengel, Ralph Houck, Yogi Berra and others with the Yankees were among the callers, but Toma stayed in Kansas City. "The Yankees promised me a lot of money, full shares of the World Series checks and things like that. But I didn't like the big city and wouldn't go," he says. "They would challenge me, would say that I was a little farm boy who was afraid to come to the big city, but I wouldn't go."

In 1963, Toma also became head groundskeeper for the Kansas City Chiefs football team. He moved with the teams to the new Royals and the Arrowhead stadiums when they were built. He retired from the Chiefs 10 years ago and from the Royals in 1997.

Toma's association with professional football started in the fall of 1962. "It was after the baseball season had ended," he remembers. "Everybody else had been laid off, and I was working by myself. We had a big work shed behind the centerfield fence. There was a flagpole out there that came out of a hole in the roof." It was where he put the flag up for games.

"Winter was coming up. It was late November and I was up there closing the hole to keep the snow out. As I was looking across the field from the roof, I saw a man walking on the field. The field was off-limits to the public, so I got down and met the man and told him 'I'm sorry, but you can't be here. We don't let anybody walk across the field. The season is over. There's the gate. You will have to leave.' "

"About 45 minutes later, up comes a big Cadillac. It was Kansas City Mayor Roe Bartle. He said, 'George, come over here. I want you to meet some people. This is Mr. Lamar and this is Mr. Jack. I want you to show them around the ballpark, the offices, the clubhouse, everything.' About two weeks later the Dallas Texans of the American Football League moved to Kansas City. Mr. Lamar turned out to be Lamar Hunt and Mr. Jack was Jack Steadman. They were the president and general manager of the Texans. I had thrown Mr. Hunt out of the ballpark."

With a steady diet of Athletics in baseball, the Chiefs in football, the Spurs in soccer, and the Beatles and other rock concerts, the stadium field was in constant use. "Everything was done by seed, and it was considered one of the best playing fields in baseball," Toma recalls.

"In those early years, we had to work with the infield dirt to get it ready for seeding. We didn't have those big rolls of sod. Dr. James R. Watson taught pre-germination to me and to Dick Erickson of the Minnesota Twins. To get the field ready for football after the last baseball game of the season, which was usually on a Sunday, we would go in and spike up the infield, drag it and put down the pre-germinated seed on the pitcher's mound, home plate area and the infield. By Friday, we were cutting grass and a week later we were playing football on it."

A stickler for detail, Toma insists on getting exactly the right mix. Many of the problems with athletic fields today, he says, are the result of poor soil testing, less than the best peat, and improper blending. "I've been retired from the Chiefs for some time now, but those turf fields are still working great."