Blue Hen football players and fans will benefit from a brand-new playing surface and drainage system at Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium this season.

Work began just after Thanksgiving and includes a new, sand-based turf playing surface, complete with new drainage system, root zone growing medium, irrigation and sod. A special drainage network of 12 trenches transfers water from the north end zone to the south end zone and to the city of Newark’s storm water drainage system, Edgar Johnson, UD director of athletics, says.

Workers from Clark Companies of Delhi, N.Y., began by removing all the dirt, sod and sand of the existing field down to a depth of about 20 inches. Installing the drainage system required digging trenches and installing piping. The drainage network was then covered with pea gravel and a mix of sand and peat moss and topped with a carpet of Kentucky bluegrass.

“Bluegrass is the best grass for athletic competition,” Johnson says. “This will be one of the finest playing fields in the country. I don’t think that anybody in our conference is playing on a similar field.”

Last fall, UD had hoped to complete the 2005 football season on Tubby Raymond Field before the installation of a new field during off-season, but nearly five inches of rain fell during the weekend of Oct. 8-9 and rendered the surface unplayable. That caused a home contest against the University of Richmond, slated for Oct. 15, to be relocated to Richmond Stadium.