Carter: Discovering My Inner Picasso
Friday, April 8, 2011 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – As a painter, no one will ever mistake this sports writer for Picasso. A third-grader waving a dripping paint brush is the more likely comparison.
When there is a home project that includes a bucket of paint, my wife takes control and keeps the paint far from my reach. It's easier that way. She won't have to clean up my mess or touch up my streaks.
Still, despite knowing that my best work as an artist came years ago with crayons, I've always wondered what it would be like to paint a football field, especially one as famous as Florida Field.
"There's some pressure," said Carlos Morales, a turf specialist at UF who has been painting Florida Field for 15 years. "If you mess up, 90,000 people see it and everybody watching the game on TV. You can't hide any mistakes."
Morales recalled an incident several years ago on the day before a Florida-Florida State game at The Swamp. The grounds crew starts prepping the field for a normal game day on Wednesday, paints the borders and hash marks on Thursday, and then dresses the field up on Fridays, adding the blue and orange colors that are synonymous with UF and Gator sports.
On this particular Friday, a member of the grounds crew went to pick up a bucket of blue paint. The lid wasn't on tight and when the person knocked the bucket over, blue paint spilled everywhere and provided what would be an embarrassing addition to Florida Field for the biggest game of the season unless they could get it cleaned up in a hurry.
There was no easy solution like grabbing a bucket of green paint and spraying it over so no one would notice.
The crew spent hours sucking the blue mess up with a high-powered vacuum and then washing the rest away with a water hose. On game day, the field looked perfect and no one ever knew.
"That was scary," Morales said.
*****
With that story tucked in my head Thursday morning, I made sure to stay as far away as possible from the approximately 30 buckets of paint it usually takes to paint Florida Field for a game.
I was there to write a story about painting the field, not be in a story explaining why there was a huge white circle on the 10-yard line for Saturday's Orange and Blue spring game in new head coach Will Muschamp's debut.
With Morales as my instructor, it was time to get to work a little after 8 a.m. and the sun slowly starting to splash over stadium. My first task seemed simple enough as Morales handed me a large nail with a string attached and told me to walk to the other side of the south end zone.
As I walked, Morales held a large spool that uncurled the string. Once I got to the other side of the field, I punched the nail into the ground and made sure the string was centered perfectly on the end line in back of the end zone.
Outlining the field is usually the first step in the process, and shortly after we were finished unrolling the string, Steve "Smiley" Peters cranked up a large sprayer on wheels loaded with white paint and began making the field come to life as fans see it on game day.
"I'm ready to roll, time to line it up," Peters said.
With a crew of usually six to eight people working, Morales said it normally takes "four to five hours" to paint the field. Thursday was a little different in that the field was being painted in one session.
Since Saturday's spring game is not a regular-season game and the final time the field will be painted before the Gators' season opener on Sept. 3 against Florida Atlantic, mostly white paint is being used.
"It's better for the grass and allows it to grow more naturally than if we used the darker colors," said Michael Cheeseman, Florida Field's turf manager. "We want the field to be in the best possible shape for when the season starts."
Instead of painting the Gators' iconic block-lettered "F" at midfield orange and the slanted-font "FLORIDA" in the end zone blue, they will be white for Saturday's game. Also, the Gator-head logos and SEC logos on each side of the field will be white to help better maintain the field over the next few months.
*****
About 45 minutes into my day on the grounds crew, the real work started.
I finally got to do some painting – at the 50-yard line no less.
A lot of Gators over the decades have acquired some special 50-yard line memories according to school lore, but mine is G-rated compared to some I've heard.
As Kyle Simmons handed over the sprayer to me once the large aluminum number templates were in place – a 5 and 0 in case you are concerned this whole experiment might have gone awry – it was time to place my stamp on Florida Field.
"You can do it," Morales said. "Make sure to watch your shoes."
Holding the sprayer about a foot from the ground, I pulled the trigger and started making magic. Well, after a few false starts. Morales temporarily intervened, showing me the proper angle to spray from, and once I got that figured out, pretty soon a freshly painted 5 and 0 were visible underneath the number templates.
I thought, 'Maybe there is a painter inside of me.' But as soon as that thought popped into my head, Cheeseman offered his assessment.
"You're fired," he said.
Once I finished and stepped off the large templates, my shoes left white splotches on the field. I had stepped in paint on the edges of the template. Morales quickly tossed a couple of rags onto the ground for me to wipe my shoes off with.
Still, I wondered if this was a fatal mistake. Had I become part of the story rather than the chronicler of one? Thankfully, Simmons and Morales quickly wiped my footprints away and I was rehired on the spot.
Whew!
*****
My next task was to help paint the hash marks that run down each sideline and in the middle of the field. To help ensure the marks are exactly a yard apart, the crew uses a track-like device that has four open slots to pain in.
Slowly, we made our way down each sideline and the field was starting to look ready to play on.
As I worked with Simmons and Morales, Bryce Rou was busy hand-spraying F-L-O-R-I-D-A in the south end zone.
A seventh-generation native Floridian, Rou grew up around Florida football. He remembers his first game like yesterday – Charley Pell's first victory as Gators coach in a 41-13 romp over Cal at old Tampa Stadium in 1980. He has been to hundreds of games since and for the last three years, Rou has played a pivotal role in the game-day experience by helping paint Florida Field.
"When you tell people what you do, they think it's pretty cool," Rou said. "I tell them it's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work."
As I strolled over to watch Rou finish the south end zone and then start on the SEC logo on the east side of the field, Cheeseman started painting the iconic "F" in the middle of the field. The famous letter was marked by strings tied around large nails.
There was no way I was going to miss a chance to paint the "F", so off I went. Cheeseman soon handed over the sprayer once he finished the edges – he didn't want to have to fire me twice in one day – and I went to work.
I briefly thought about all the great players who have played on Florida Field over the years and the millions of people who instantly recognize the "F" logo, and pulled the trigger.
A few minutes later, the "F" was complete.
I stepped back – making sure there was no paint on my shoes – and observed my work.
Yep, the "F" looked perfect. I had not painted an "E."
Maybe I've got some Picasso in me after all.
