Pennsylvania Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

When Heinz Field Sports Turf Manager Thomas Goyne started his new job with the Steelers organization last August, he was “thrown into the fire,” as he puts it. From covid mitigations to packed schedules, his new job brought one challenge after another. But his education and experience at Penn State prepared him well. “My goals are the same here as they were at Penn State,” he says, “to tackle problems and create solutions for providing a safe, playable, high-quality playing field. Same goals — but more pressure! The eyes on my work have almost doubled from the roughly 6 million who saw a Penn State game on TV or in person to the 11 million who see a Steelers game. I want to do right by the players and by the organization and make sure we look good.”

Challenges

His first challenge came in the form of a change of venue for training camp. Traditionally held in Latrobe, it was decided to move it to Heinz Field because of covid concerns on the same day that Thomas Goyne was interviewing for the job. Grooming the field and getting it ready for the season had to work around training camp. Then from September to December, he notes, there were simply no weeks off to regroup. Two teams, the Steelers and the Pitt Panthers, share the facilities at Heinz Field, so at times the field is in use for back-to-back games, Pitt on Saturday and the Steelers on Sunday.

Adding to the wear and tear of training and games by two teams is the occasional concert stage, he says. Even though a floor is put down to protect the turf from the heavy equipment needed to bring in a stage, the grass under the floor suffers from pressure and lack of light. When the Rolling Stones played at Heinz Field in October, the stage area itself required a quick resodding of 35,000 square feet before the Steelers game the following Sunday.

Goyne heads a crew of four, two long-term groundskeepers and another associate hired at the same time he came on board. He takes his leadership role seriously and tries to keep the worst of the pressure away from his crew members, he says. It’s a young crew with an average age of 30 and the non-stop challenges had an upside in that it gave them a chance to bond quickly.

Career Path

That raises the question: how does a turf manager make it to the pro level at the relatively young age of 26? In Goyne’s case, a friend pointed him to the Steelers opportunity and the more he considered it, the more impressive he found the organization. It was not just the home of a stellar football team but also had lots of long-haul, old school employees. That was evidence to Goyne of a fulfilling workplace where he could grow professionally. “I thought I would be at PSU forever,” he confesses. “I learned so much about best practices through Penn State, and there is just such a great network there that prepared me for this move.”

Thomas Goyne comes by his attachment to sports fields and to Penn State honestly. He first got interested in maintaining sports fields watching his dad work on his Little League field, and at the age of 13, he took part in a “groundskeeper for a day” learning experience. In high school, his American Legion baseball team submitted their field for a KAFMO Field of Distinction award and were thrilled to get an honorable mention. His high school golf course superintendent, who hailed from Penn State, further encouraged his interest and his uncle, Keith Goyne, now at Virginia Tech, was also a Penn Stater familiar with the possibilities in turf science as a field of study. So when it came time to choose a university, Penn State was the natural choice for Goyne. There, with the help of a KAFMO scholarship, he learned about the science of turf at school, while he got hands-on experience in caring for and preparing fields at his job and internships — and he chose those internships with an eye to who would give him the most opportunities for wide experience.

As president of the Penn State Turf Club, Goyne worked on the Beaver Stadium grounds crew and he interned for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Miami Marlins, and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. He valued interning under Tony Leonard in Philadelphia and Chad Mulholland in Miami, he says, because they gave him a taste of every aspect of the work. Upon graduation, he took a job at Florida State and then became Intercollegiate Athletics Assistant Supervisor of Grounds for Penn State. He credits the mentorship of recently retired lead groundskeeper Paul Curtis for deepening his experience and giving him a firm grounding in the profession.

Words of Advice

It is not so long ago that a young Thomas Goyne was looking to the fields of pro football organizations and hoping to find a place there. When asked what he would advise a young person with similar goals, he warns not to look for instant gratification. “It’s a tough industry but a good one,” he says. An aspiring turf manager will have to work to get to the top. There is a lot to learn in the classroom about the science of turf, like roots, drainage, pest management,  etc., and then there are all the hands-on things you can only learn on the field, like how to paint lines, manage an irrigation system, and work on a scoreboard. “When choosing internships, don’t take the one that looks easy,” he advises. “You have to look for mentors. Use your internships and relationships, lean on the professional organizations like KAFMO, build your skills and your network at the same time. When it all comes together, this profession allows you to use your creative ability in a perfect blend of art, business, science, and management.”

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