- Slug:BC-CNS-Football Field,260
- File photos, video story available (thumbnails, captions below)
By BAILEY O’CARROLL
Cronkite News
TEMPE – As players, coaches and fans tune in to bowl games across the country, one select group is staying busy preparing for the big games: the groundskeepers.
Meet Brian Johnson, Arizona State’s athletic grounds facilities manager. He spends the bulk of his time during football season caring for the fields at Sun Devil Stadium.
“It isn’t just a field to me,” he told Cronkite News at the start of the season. “I’m walking around and treating it like it’s my child.”
But fans also can check out his work at the Cheez-It Bowl. The California Golden Bears will face Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Chase Field in Phoenix.
He’s painted the field for that game since it was the Insight Bowl in Tucson, he said via Twitter message.
He noted that they don’t use stencils and brush the outline of all the logos and team names by hand – much like they do at ASU.
“We’re probably the only school in the country that doesn’t use a big stencil for those letters,” he said of ASU’s field. “We have it all drawn, hand drawn on graph paper, and we run strings and tape measures and paint brushes and outline our letters.”
Players approve.
“We have probably one of the Top 3 best fields, Top 5 … in the country,” ASU quarterback Manny Wilkins told Cronkite News in August. “I make sure I let him know how appreciative I am.”
Johnson’s work is known throughout the country. He has painted all but one Super Bowl field in the past 21 years.
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Brian Johnson has managed Arizona State University’s athletic grounds facilities for 33 years. (Photo by Kylee Meter/Cronkite News).
The hands of ASU groundskeeper Brian Johnson often look this way after his workday begins at Sun Devil Stadium. (Photo by Kylee Meter/Cronkite News)