The grass on which the Super Bowl was played: The power of unseen service

Super Bowl LIV is now over, with the Chiefs’ victory consigned to history. So is the field on which the game was played.

Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium hosted the event. To build the field on which some of the sport’s greatest stars would play, they installed a new carpet of fresh grass. It was an extra-thick layer of sod that weighed roughly 660 tons.

The manager of the company that grew the turf said, “We
try for it to be strong enough to withstand weather and 330-pound linemen. We
want it to be bulletproof.” The company’s owner added: “We can’t put
a guy making $30 million on a field that will fall apart.”

The turf cost $225,000 to grow, not including transportation
and installation. It was delivered to Miami in 660 rolls on thirty trucks.

By now, however, the field is gone. The company went in at 1 a.m. Monday morning to remove the turf. A portion of it will be used at a horse farm; the remainder will become filler at a plant nursery.

Why the rush?

So a tennis court and stadium could be built on the field.

Watching the Super Bowl along with 100 million other people,
I had no idea that the field was such a story. But without a turf that could
withstand the game, the halftime show, and everything else that transpired, the
experience would obviously have been significantly different.

The Super Bowl turf is also a parable, pointing to the fact that those we cannot see often change the world we can.

The power of unseen service

Our culture celebrates musicians who perform at games and in concerts, but, without the sound crew and technical staff, we could not hear the music they produce.

We venerate movie stars, but without the film crews that make their movies, we would never see their performances.

We fly the world on airplanes with little thought for the maintenance staff that make our flights safe.

We travel on roads paved by unseen workers and live in homes built by carpenters we…