Left to Right: Dr. Kevin Mathias, Brent Waite, Matthew Park, Brian Hogan, Ryan Higgins, and Alex Steinman after winning the GCSSA Collegiate Turf Bowl
Image Credit: Ryan Higgins
A group of four students advised by Dr. Kevin Mathias, a lecturer in the Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA), has been rightfully nicknamed “Doc’s Fab Four” after winning first place in both the Sports Turf Management Association (STMA) Student Challenge and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) Collegiate Turf Bowl this year.
The STMA Student Challenge took place January 21 and was quickly succeeded by the GCSAA Collegiate Turf Bowl on Thursday, February 6 in Orlando, Florida. The team was awarded $4,000 per competition which is being used to enhance related programs at the University of Maryland.
The team, made up of IAA students Brian Hogan, Matthew Park, and Brent Waite, as well as Ryan Higgins, a student in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA), are changing the landscape of turf and golf course studies not only here at the university, but within the industry as well.
“The alumni are so proud to have a Maryland team recognized,” says Mathias . “There is so much pride from the industry too, whether they are [University of] Maryland alumni or not. If they are a Maryland business, they are very proud of both the STMA Championship and also the Collegiate Turf Bowl Competition.”
This year’s success has been a long time coming. It marks the first time a team from UMD has claimed the coveted top-spot in the Collegiate Turf Bowl after participating for more than 15 years.
Each member of the team has had his fair share of turf and golf course management-related competitions. However, the team’s experiences are not limited to these competitions alone but come from actual hands-on work in the field. All four had opportunities to either work on a golf course or in residential lawn care prior to attending UMD, piquing their interests in studying golf course management further.
“I think that a lot of people think that you’re just maintaining grass but there’s so much science that goes into it,” says Waite. “To be a superintendent of a golf course you have to be part scientist, part mechanic, part counselor, accountant, etcetera.”
“We all want to be superintendents someday,” Hogan says. “Unfortunately more golf courses are closing than opening right now." Therefore, "you really have to manage your course well. As far as financially, you really have to know how to break even or make it profitable through labor costs, material costs, things like that.”
These considerations, among others, are specifically addressed in events like the STMA Student Challenge and the GCSAA Turf Bowl.
According to Mathias, the two events are, “similar because they get into people management, business management, and turf identification. The difference is that in the Sports Turf (STMA), there are more specific questions,” regarding managing sports fields like baseball fields.
Both events included short-answer questions and case scenarios, multiple choice, and the identification of turf grasses, insects, diseases, and soil samples.
To prepare, Mathias would host three-and-a-half-hour practicals and debrief review sessions once a week beginning one month before the event. Courses offered through the IAA’s two-year golf course management program and in PSLA’s four-year program also assisted the team in their competitive endeavors.
As announcers counted down the top ten competitors at the closing ceremony of the Collegiate Turf Bowl, Waite remembers: “They announced second place and we were still sitting there and we just started to wonder, ‘What did we mess up?!’”
Nevertheless, “Doc’s Fab Four” walked away with a first place win in front of 70 other competing teams.
“It’s a huge feather in the cap” Hogan notes, while Higgins adds that their accomplishments, “put the school on the map.”
Next year, the team will lose Matthew Park and Brent Waite, leaving Brian Hogan and Ryan Higgins to find two more teammates and take on the daunting task of following up this year’s big wins.
Dr. Mathias and Brent Waite recently appeared on Fox 45 TV in Baltimore to talk about their success. Watch the video clip at the link below:
http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/morning/stories/university-marylan...
