Packer Fans Stake Claim to Chunks of Discarded Grass

The tundra of Lambeau Field was theirs for the taking, and dozens of Green Bay Packers fans grabbed a chunk of history.

Fans descended on the stadium’s parking lot Tuesday and Wednesday to take home pieces of the high-tech, low-effectiveness SportGrass field the Packers are throwing out.

But after several near misses between eager fans and vehicles driven by workers, the scavenging ended Wednesday when the turf was resold to a local gun club.

The Packers began removing the field shortly after Green Bay’s 26-23 victory over Tampa Bay last Sunday. Workers lumped the sod in a giant pile in the southwest parking lot, and the removal job was completed Wednesday.

Word soon got out that the half-natural, half-synthetic turf was free game, and dozens of fans decided to get a piece. With scythes, hacksaws, machetes, even steak knives, they looked more like killers than collectors.

“It’s just a part of being a Packers supporter,” Donna Stiggis of Ashwaubenon said. “People want anything to do with the team, and this is their field.”

“We’re going to plant it in our backyard,” said Jim Braun, who loaded three small rolls of turf into his pickup. “It’ll just be a conversation piece or something.”

The SportGrass will be replaced with bluegrass. The Packers’ next home game is Nov. 1.

In 1997, the Packers sold $10 boxes of the sod ripped out of the field after Green Bay beat the Carolina Panthers in the NFC championship game. The $300,000 in proceeds were given to several Green Bay charities.

Packers spokesman Lee Remmel said the current turf wouldn’t be sold for charity. Instead, since the Packers must foot the bill for replacing the turf, it was resold to defray costs.

Security guards were stationed on the pile on Wednesday morning to prevent would-be landscape architects from taking more of the turf and getting in the way of the five trucks that began hauling the grass away to its new owner, the Shawano County Gun Club.

The decision to replace the turf was made when team officials decided the surface wasn’t regenerating sufficiently. Before Green Bay’s last two games, groundskeepers painted the field to cover many brown spots.

The field has been a problem since the Packers installed the SportGrass before the 1997 season. Though it is designed specifically to handle wet weather because of its sand base, the club had a hard time getting the grass to grow in the Wisconsin climate.

Initially, the grass performed well, but it didn’t grow back in some places during the spring of ’98 and had to be resodded in the middle of the field. The following fall, the grass stopped growing in November and December, reducing the surface to a bald, sandy track.

The Packers allowed the SportGrass makers to resod the entire field last spring, but the troubles continued when there was considerable slipping during a scrimmage in August.