University of the Cumberland’s Field Day - June 24th, 2026

University of Cumberland’s Field Day was a good time for everyone who attended. Big thank you to Coach Brad Shelton and his staff for allowing us to use their beautiful campus/grounds. They do a tremendous job and their hard work is showing!

Starting off the morning with King Donuts/Coffee/Juice to allow members to network and catch up with familiar faces. This is the best part of the turf industry is being able to gather together. The education portion started after with Matthew Goode/myself talking about SEC softball tournament and the preparation that goes in hosting an event like that. Second, was Dr. Chase Straw who has been a big time friend for myself and many others, as well as KYSFMA. He talked about “Challenges and Tradeoff of Managing Natural Turfgrass and Synthetic Turf Sports Fields”, the topic is always a big hit with members in this state. I had many comments from members how they enjoyed Dr Straw talk and would love to hear more. To round out the educational portion of the day, we had Taylor Williams from UT Turfgrass come up and tell/demo the fLEX machine they are using for the World Cup right now. I had the chance to hear this a few weeks ago with him at SEC Turfgrass meetings but it’s a pretty cool process of how it works and collects data.

Now to my favorite part of the day…the FOOD. Haha. We had a great meal from a local place called G&E. They did a great job and everyone left full!

After lunch, the University of the Cumberland’s showed off their hillside mower on a hill that I would’ve loved to sleigh ride down as a kid! (Probably 200-300 foot hill). Aerification Solutions (Allan Carpenter) and Beard Equipment (Rick Curtsinger) brought some equipment for folks to look at and see the services they offered in the parking lot. As well as our other vendors networking with customers, Stephen West with Sigma Organics, Stephen Callis with The Hogan Company, Doug Vesico with Vesico’s Sports Fields, Chris Miller with Kentuckiana Turf Solutions, Eric Varner with Varner Turf Management, and Marcus Dean with Advanced Turf Solutions. Lastly, as the group made it to the soccer field, Hayden with Tiny Mobile Robot was painting the soccer field while members caught up with one another and shared a few funny stories.

Lastly, thanks to our sponsors and the support they have given us to get this organization off the ground. It’s really impressive what has happened in the last 10 months. We are over 230 members, 30 vendors, hosted social outings, field renovation day, webinars, gave away three $1000 scholarships, hosted our first field day of 2026, supported FFA within the state, and got the Sports Turf Certificate through SFMA with ICEV passed within the state of Kentucky, that allows teachers to teach Sports Turf Management within the state and students get post secondary credit.

We still got a bunch of work to keep working on but we are moving in the right direction. IRON SHARPENS IRON.

-Marcus Elswick

KYSFMA Secretary/Treasurer

UK Head Sports Turf Manager