UNLV turf manager has real green thumb

When a quarterback is sacked or a shortstop lunges for a grounder, they may not know it but they are counting on the work of Jim Bozarth, sports turf manager at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Bozarth babies the turf in fields all over campus. He and his crew are responsible for a 7-acre intramural field, a women's softball field, three full soccer fields, a full NCAA collegiate baseball stadium and a football complex with two full-size practice fields and a game field used by both the Rebels and the XFL's Las Vegas Outlaws. Plus, there is a track that has a football field-sized piece of turf inside it.

Multiple uses present the grass expert with additional challenges. When the PRCA National Finals Rodeo comes to town every year, the intramural field is the site of a huge event tent chock full of horses. Horse hooves are not the kindest way to treat grass.

"We have to rebuild the field every year after the rodeo," Bozarth said.

Horses aren't the only field punishers. Players rely on turf to give way when they hit the ground. As far as the manager is concerned, sports turf is about more than pretty grass. He understands the importance of a good field from his Rancho High School football days.

"You have to look at a sports facility as a piece of the players equipment," Bozarth said. "If the field is damaged but the player is not hurt, you've accomplished your goal. If grass didn't yield, a player could end up with a damaged knee."

Even when the grass gets worn bare by too many touchdowns, Bozarth doesn't mind.

"I really enjoy the job a lot. It makes you feel good when you've gone into football fields beat to death from practice season," he said. "In two weeks you get to stand there and see what you've done. It's sort of like a painter finishing a painting. You get to see the product of your work."

How does Bozarth keep the turf green in one of the least grass-friendly climates on Earth? The answer is lots of practice and knowledge.

The turf artist has no magic seeds or miracle cures to offer lawn lovers. He just uses high grades of Bermuda grass for his athletic fields. He said the key, which many residents forget, is to feed their lawns.

"The only trick to growing grass is that just like a parent knows when their kid is hungry, you have to know when your grass is hungry," he said. "There is nothing in the soil here. Everything the lawn eats you have to install.

Sports turf may be exciting, but it's not half as thrilling as Bozarth's long-term hobby, jumping with the Flying Elvi. Bozarth started jumping back in 1981. During his stint as an air born Elvis he was in "a plethora of commercials" and traveled the country doing grand openings and special appearances.

The jumper even had a brush with fame when he appeared in "Honeymoon in Vegas." Bozarth is the big guy sitting next to Nicolas Cage in the Elvis-filled airplane scene bobbing his head to the beat of the music.

"None of us was actually supposed to look like Elvis. That was part of the joke," Bozarth said.

He flew with the Elvis crew until 1996 when a freak burst of wind turbulence collapsed his parachute. He fell 100 feet to the ground, landing on his back and crushing his spine. Twelve metal rods were placed in his back where they stayed for a year.

"They took the rods out and I made a jump 10 days later. I may walk funny, but that's no big deal," he said.

Now Bozarth just concentrates on turf. He may love it, but he didn't grow up wanting to care for sports fields.

"I never thought of it," he said. "When I was a kid laying on the football fields, looking up at the sky and eating the grass, maintaining a facility would have been the last thing on my mind."

The manager worked 12 years on the railroad before joining the staff at UNLV as a maintenance technician. Grounds supervisor Dennis Swartzell encouraged Bozarth to take up turf. Countless classes later, the University of Georgia certified him as a sports turf manager.

Now the turf manager views his fields as living breathing partners.

"You have to know the soil and you have to be able to look at the grass and it will talk to you," he said. "Look at your field and it will tell you when it's hungry."

As for the grass back home, Bozarth isn't ashamed to admit his wife Susan Bozarth, UNLV's director of admissions, does the mowing.

"She loves to tell people that," he said.