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Three hours before Syracuse faced Virginia on Oct. 10, groundskeeper Jordan Gass stationed himself on top of SU Soccer Stadium’s concrete wall, angled his iPhone and snapped a picture of his co-worker’s creation.

Yards away, Ryan Crawford rolled around on a lawnmower, drawing a ring of circles that stretched out from the field’s center point. With small breaks in between to sip iced coffee and remove corner flags, the design took Crawford 41 minutes to complete. It only needed a title.

“UFO landing,” Gass said while he and Crawford gazed at the field before kickoff. “I would say a center-circle pattern,” Crawford added.

Crawford then thought of one that suited him. “The Crawford Special,” he concluded.

Both chuckled while Syracuse women’s soccer took to the field, ripping up the duo’s work under their cleats. It’s why they have “job security,” Gass said — why they have a job in the first place. As Syracuse University groundskeepers, Crawford, Gass, Sava Vadekas and field technician David Buffum maintain 25 acres of university athletic property across South Campus. This fall, the group’s main “desk” for 22 men’s and women’s soccer home games has been a 225-by-360-foot grass field — SU Soccer Stadium.

Buffum works year-round, nurturing a pitch that goes through Syracuse winters and Division I athletes destroying it for at least 90 minutes a week during the fall. The days are unpredictable and guided by the weather, with safety and playability being the two main priorities, Buffum said. And, if time permits, enhancing the field’s aesthetics is key, too.

“Our goal is to make it look like they weren’t out there,” Crawford said. “We’re invisible.”

Days usually start at 6 a.m for the group. On Oct. 10, with a noon kickoff, Gass and Crawford clocked in for their shift at the SU Physical Plant at 6 a.m. The two walked through the stadium’s entrance gate 24 minutes later, stood side by side in the dark and peered out at the field ahead of them. Then they went to work.

Gass emptied trash cans — filled with remnants left from the men’s soccer game two days before — and Crawford planted 15 orange and blue flags. After, they stepped into their “mobile office” — a white Ford pick-up truck — and traveled across a parking lot to J.S. Coyne Stadium to complete the same task.

Maya Goosmann | Design Director

The job may be “boring” at times, Crawford said. But there’s creativity involved when troubleshooting problems and maneuvering a Toro lawn mower to design the field and cut the grass to one inch.

Crawford became a groundskeeper after working in the restaurant industry and looking for a career switch. Gass joined after graduating high school. Buffum came to SU in 2003, worked in food services, switched into groundskeeping and hasn’t left since. Pat Carroll, their boss and the manager of grounds at Syracuse, has devoted nearly 40 years to the craft, spending the vast majority of it on golf courses before coming to SU in 2018.

The SU Soccer Stadium is 25 years old, leading Carroll to replace the field with one that can grow purely on sand for better drainage and compaction. In 2019, Carroll helped choose the playing surface’s next turf: Kentucky bluegrass, a sod that’s featured in MLB and NFL stadiums across the country.

When the sun rose, Gass tucked himself under the bleachers, grabbed a bucket filled with sand and the picked-out grass seed along with a two-prong pitchfork. Gass and Crawford scattered across the field, puncturing, mixing and stomping on divots so balls skid normally and the field regrows correctly. They do the same task before, during and after every game.

“Got to be hundreds,” Gass said on how many divots he’s filled. “I don’t have (enough) fingers for that.” 

After a lunch break at Marshall Street’s Dunkin’, Crawford revved up a driveable lawn mower, plugged in his earbuds to listen to Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” and rolled onto the pitch for a fresh trim. The groundskeepers normally keep the same turf pattern over the course of a week, and find design inspiration through LinkedIn, professional stadium fields and a Facebook sports turf management group where other groundskeepers discuss the craft.

Once Crawford placed the corner flags, everything was completed. At 10:38 a.m., however, their work began to unfurl when Natalie Weidenbach’s tan Nike cleats pressed into the pitch. The rest of the team joined after, trailing out of Ensley Center for pregame warmups. 

Crawford and Gass stood at the stadium’s entrance right before game time, bantering about rapper J. Cole and gushing over past field designs. They will soon move snow in the winter, tend to Skytop Softball Stadium in the spring and may be on a completely different grounds crew next year. “A revolving door,” Buffum said. But for now, they’re just focused on finishing out the season.

While players wandered toward their benches for lineups and the National Anthem, Crawford glanced at his phone, saw the time and said goodbye to Gass. With his shift ending at noon, he hopped back into a Ford, leaving Gass behind to fill in any divots “The Crawford Special” endured throughout the game.

Alone, Gass sat in the bleachers, becoming invisible among the crowd until he was needed again.

Published on October 20, 2021 at 10:51 pm

Contact Christopher: [email protected] | @chrisscargs