Red, I was on the field in the preseason, and it's not bad. It's not horrible. It's putrid. There were green stains on my tennis shoes from the spray paint. The SAND they had filled in spots where there was no grass was actually painted green. Literally. I had heard scuttlebut that they were going to rip the turf up. It would be a welcome move by the players, for one. As for the "state of the art" drainage system put in place in the 80's, it's another Tiger Park type of situation (a reference to the brand new softball facility built in 1997 in reaction to the Joe Dean Title IX backslap case against LSU in the mid 90's. It was built for $700,000, and has literally no permanent public bathrooms and is so poorly provided for that ULL gets Regional bids instead of LSU these days)...in that the recommended amounts of sand and gravel and drainage pipes were "altered" by Jim Beam Dean to cut corners and costs. The result was a poor man's "first rate" drainage system that has had more than its fair share of problems. From what I understand, the system is woeful, to be honest. Have you ever seen the sidelines for even damp games? They put carpet down so the sideline doesn't turn to sludge. I've been out on the field, and unless MAJOR improvements were made this year as compared to the few days before kickoff in 2003, the field is in deplorable shape. To think that we have a SEC football team using that field is a joke.
