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Artificial Turf A Dangerous Playing Surface Essay

Artificial Turf: A Dangerous Playing Surface Essay, Research Paper


Artificial Turf: A Dangerous Playing Surface


Some of the changes that have occurred in professional football were


necessary for the game. Pads, helmets and other protective equipment helped the


players safety. Other developments though, especially artificial turf, have


proven themselves detrimental to the game and its participants. Just as changes


were made earlier, they must be made again. Stadiums need to convert back to


grass playing fields for the safety of football players, the satisfaction of the


fans, and most importantly to improve the sport overall.


What Is Artificial Turf?


Like Kleenex or Xerox, AstroTurf has become the popular moniker for all


artificial playing surfaces impersonating natural grass in the modern sports


world. Born in the 1960’s out of a military project to improve the physical


fitness of urban teenagers, AstroTurf,along with its foreign and domestic


impostors that were eventually squeezed out of the industry, was developed as a


cheaper, more durable, low maintenance alternative to grass as a playing surface


for football, baseball, and soccer. The original sales pitch rang true with all


the sincerity of a beer commercial: All the fun of the regular grass, with only


a third of the maintenance. Monsanto, AstroTurf’s original manufacturer, had an


ace in hole as well; grass doesn’t grow very well in domes. Seduced by visions


of conquering Mother Nature and paying a couple kids minimum wage to run a


vacuum cleaner over the field between games, stadium executives across the


nation bought into the AstroTurf movement. However, as the powers that be soon


discovered f or themselves, AstroTurf proved to be neither cheaper nor lower


maintenance than grass, and it had a nasty little side effect. Players, coaches,


and trainers began to notice a substantial increase in the frequency of injuries


on the improved traction and reduced cushion of AstroTurf. Doctors even


identified and named a few new ones, common only to the artificial surface.


Turf Injuries


The relative hardness of AstroTurf has spawned an unpleasant little chronic


injury called turf toe. It occurs when the big toe is crushed into an artificial


surface, ramming the toe back up into the foot and ripping up any ligaments and


tissue it might encounter along the way. A little less serious but somewhat more


messy ailment turf burn, which like turf toe, simply would not exist without


Astroturf. Turf burn occurs just about anytime exposed skin comes in contact


with the artificial surface, which in a contact sport like football, is about


every thirty seconds. Because AstroTurf has about the same texture as a


toothbrush and it can sizzle at about 30 degrees higher than the air temperature


on a hot day, it rips off flesh with the efficiency of sandpaper. And aside from


the nagging pain and constant threat of infections, turf burn offers the added


bonus of making you stick to your sheets every night as you sleep. These,


however, are but minor ailments. The notion that an increase in major injuries,


particularly to the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee is a direct result of


AstroTurf has been a more hotly debated issue. In 1974, the Stanford Research


Institute International (SRI) completed a six year study commissioned by the


National Football League on the health effects of artificial turf. SRI reported


that “in 17 out of 17 categories, natural grass was safer to play on than


artificial surfaces.” Joe Grippo, the director of SRI, later admitted that


“synthetic surfaces could not be justified, not on an injury prevention basis,


not on a relative cost basis.” Those facts, however, did not stop the NFL


Players Association from conducting its own injury studies. The NFLPA concluded


for the 1984 season that “the average turf injury took longer to heal, that the


number of players increased by a third and that the number of missed games


doubled when the injuries occurred on turf.” More recently, an ESPN poll


conducted in September 1995 likewise found that 98 percent of NFL players


believe playing on AstroTurf will shorten their careers. The NFLPA’s reasoning


for the increase in injuries echoed what common sense and trainers across the


League had been saying for years. AstroTurf, because of its augmented traction,


split seems, and permanent high and low spots (known as “birdbaths”), sometimes


causes a player’s feet to stick to the ground. “The resulting torque places


enormous pressure on joints like the knee and the ankle, resulting in a greater


number of torn tendons and ligaments.”


Football Players’ Preferences


The results of a January 1997 study by the NFL Players Association showed that


nine out of 10 NFL players believe playing on artificial turf is more likely


than grass to cause the kind of serious injuries that shorten careers. The


written survey was conducted by NFLPA staff members at team meetings during


the1996 NFL season, as a follow-up to a similar survey conducted during the 1994


NFL season. The 1996 survey revealed that 86.7% of the 1034 players who answered


preferred to play on natural grass (up from 85.1% in 1994), while only 6.3%


preferred artificial turf (down from 7% in 1994) and 7% had no preference (8% in


1994). Almost three-quarters (74%) of NFL players in this survey also indicated


that playing on a natural grass surface was either very important or somewhat


important in selecting the teams they would consider s

igning with as free agents


(up from 70% in 1994). NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw stated: “This survey


underscores the overwhelming and increasing preference of NFL players for top-


quality natural grass playing surfaces. Given the need of every NFL club to


recruit free agents to remain competitive, we expect that many NFL clubs will


recognize the obvious advantage they will gain by converting to or upgrading to


a first-class natural grass playing field.” When asked to rate the five best


playing fields the players chose the following:


Ranking Stadium


Field Surface


1 Tampa Stadium


Natural Grass


2 Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami


Natural Grass


3 Jacksonville Stadium


Natural Grass


4 Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona


Natural Grass


5 Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City


Natural Grass


Players rated the worst stadiums as follows:


Ranking Stadium


Field Surface


1 Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia


Artificial Turf


2 Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati


Artificial Turf


3 The Astrodome in Houston


Artificial Turf


4 Three Rivers Stadiumin Pittsburgh


Artificial Turf


5 Giants Stadium in New Jersey


Artificial Turf


Other results of the survey:


93.4% of NFL players believe that artificial turf is more likely than grass to


contribute to injury.


90.9% believe artificial turf is more likely to shorten their careers.


83.9% believe artificial turf is more likely to worsen their quality of life


after football.


94.8% believe artificial turf causes more soreness.


58.9% believe artificial turf causes more fatigue.


52.5% identified an artificial turf injury they suffered that they believe would


not have happened on grass.


Medical Evidence Linking Turf and Injury


Examining 25 scientific journals, Dr. Willibald Nagler, the Anne and Jerome


Fisher Physiatrist in Chief at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City, and


his colleagues found that foot and knee injuries on synthetic turf in some


cases occur about 50 percent more than on grass. And when injuries do occur,


they often are more serious and difficult to heal than those that occur on grass.


Nagler explained that synthetic turf does not allow the foot to slide when it


hits the ground, and ligaments in the feet and knees rupture — injuries that


can be “debilitating and painful for an athlete, and difficult to heal and to


treat.” Ligaments whose sole function is to keep the joint in place are not


elastic, Nagler emphasized, and they rupture either partially or completely. “It


takes quite a long time to heal if they are even partially ruptured,” said


Nagler, a specialist in rehabilitation medicine. “The ligament actually comes


apart, and it loses its functional value. It doesn’t hold the joint together


anymore.” Treatment is to immobilize the joint in a plaster cast or surgically


suture the ligament back together. That is difficult because the surgeon has to


take ligament from someplace else, and the procedure is not always successful.


Football on grass results in fewer ligamentous injuries, Nagler said, and those


that do occur are not as severe, according to the published scientific articles.


Furthermore, synthetic turf may exacerbate existing injuries, or make healing


take longer, the studies show. Nagler and Dr. Debra Braverman of the Department


of Rehabilitation Medicine examined more than two dozen scientific journals to


compare ligamentous football injuries. Among them: Journal of Sports Medicine,


Clinical Orthopedics, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and


others. He was motivated, he said, “because there is a lot of anecdotal


evidence, but no one’s really searched the literature to see if it’s true.


There is definitely an increase in ligamentous injuries on artificial turf.”


Financial Downfalls of Astroturf Fields


AstroTurf has generally failed to prove itself any less expesive than grass.


The Monsanto company’s claim, just before it sold its AstroTurf division to


Balsam, was that grass would cost $40,000 annually to keep in shape compared to


only $4,000 for AstroTurf. However as noted by Alex Hill of Colorado University,


natural grass is still cheaper to install, and in a football exclusive stadium


the total cost over a ten year period is about even for turf and grass at just


over a million dollars. Moreover, those statistics don’t even account for the


single greatest fear of many: the possibility that a star with a guaranteed


multimillion dollar contract will trip on a seam in the turf, rip apart his knee,


and spend the rest of his career in rehab programs. It is a cost that is


measured in missing Super Bowl rings as easily as it is in dollars and cents,


not in groundskeeping costs.


The Solution


An ESPNET poll revealed that of 4650 fans surveyed 97 percent preferred watching


games played on natural grass. Players in the NFL prefer natural grass, and


their protection is most important. They are after all your investment in


financial and athletic success as are the fans. Having grass fields installed


in your stadium will also attract free agents as well. Astroturf’s time is up,


it’s time for a switch back to grass. The investment in a natural grass playing


surface will ease the minds of players, fans and coaches alike and let them


concentrate on the more important aspects of football

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