Sports

The goal posts are up and games will soon be played on the new turf field at Adair Kennedy Park in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley.

Adair Kennedy field is the home of the Juneau-Douglas High School Crimson Bears and Juneau Youth Football League.

The project is only a few days behind schedule, despite arson that destroyed specialized equipment and materials last month, as well as lost days of work due to rain.

Rosemarie Alexander was on hand for nearly every phase of the process, from tearing out the old turf to completing the new.

It didn’t take long to tear out the 12-year-old turf, which was long past its prime.  And when the field fell victim to arson last year, it seemed an easy decision to replace it.

CBJ Project Manager Catherine Wilkens says sports field technology is constantly changing.

“If you have a field that’s two or three years old, they sort or refer to it as the last generation.  A field that’s ten years old, I don’t even know how many generations back that would be, but it would be considered very out of date,” she says.

So what’s different since the generation installed in the year 2000?

“It’s the nature of the backing which is the big change,” Wilkens says.

Adair Kennedy field sported the first artificial turf in Juneau.

“The other one had sort of a looser fiber to allow it to drain straight through,” she explains. “This actually has little holes punctured, which should be allowing better drainage.”

And while that first field was well-drained, the system needed work.  The outfall pipe has been cleaned and a catch basin installed.

“So it’s just the carpet on the top basically that’s being replaced. And we think it will last longer than the last one did,” she says.

Replacing the carpet is hardly basic.  The intricate cutting, sewing, and gluing process has been done by Shaw Sportexe, one of only a few companies that specialize in synthetic turf fields.

Juneau field superintendent Eric Pratt has been “everywhere, anywhere they want to send me.  I’ve been as far as Istanbul, Turkey.”

Pratt was part of the Shaw team that put in the JDHS practice field in 2005.

In his job he’s installed “miles of turf, miles upon miles.”

Pratt begins by sewing turf sections together.  The industrial sewing machines are so specialized that he travels with three.

Since mid-June, Jacob Graves has been watching every step of the field installation.  He’s the inspector on the job, the eyes and ears for the city and borough, and R & M Engineering.

“It’s not as simple as planting grass,” Graves says. “This thing’s sewed together like a quilt.”

Once it’s sewn, the hash marks, numbers, yard lines and other symbols are cut in and super-glued.  The Shaw guys have developed terms for that gluing process: “smooshing” and “sprooging.”

“Right now the glue is smooshing underneath the number and the turf,” says Brodie Jacobson, gluing down a very large zero. “So it’s smooshing. “The glue needs to kind of come up and over the turf and the number so that it gets a good grip on it when it dries.”

 Next comes the rubber infill.  The Shaw crew arrived with a Turfco spreader, but on June 19^th, it was burned in an arson fire, along with all the glue and sealing tape.

“It was the first time to have that happen,” says Dave Herbert of Shaw Sportexe, who says he has worked on artificial fields in every state but Idaho.

A new Turfco spreader had to be sent to Juneau to finish the project.  When it arrived, “we took it away from here,” Herbert says. 

Then last week it came out of safekeeping to disperse the rubber crumbs according to “a certain [number of] pounds per square foot that’s specific to each field,  basically,” Shaw field superintendent Pratt says, as he’s about to brush in the rubber with a special machine called LaMore.

It’s just a matter of dropping the rubber down in layers, nice even lifts, is what we call it, and then brushing it in so it drops down in between the fibers,” Pratt says. “And that’s it, that’s the magic to it.”

Pratt and his crew have wrapped up their magic.  They’ve put the finishing edges on the new artificial turf and are heading to another city; another field.

Throughout the project CBJ’s Wilkens has not missed a step and says the Shaw crew “really know their stuff.”

Soon Juneau kids will take to the field, which is courtesy of their voting parents, who agreed last year to allow the city to sell $1.19 million in bonds to pay for it.  The state of Alaska will reimburse Juneau for 70 percent of the construction costs.

 

Related Stories:
Three charged in last month’s arson at Adair Kennedy field
Damage mounts from turf field vandalism
Update: Torched turf equipment leaves project behind schedule

A Kodiak runner is one step away from the Olympic Games in London this summer. Trevor Dunbar on Monday night took third in his 5K heat at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Oregon.

His time of 13-minutes 49.19-seconds was good for third in the first of two qualifying races. He was 11th overall after the his qualifier and will run in the 5,000 meter finals on Thursday night. It will air live on NBC Sports Channel at 6:30 Alaska time.

Dunbar was next to last for much of the race, but moved up to third in the second half before fading to sixth as the pace picked up. But going into the home stretch, Dunbar turned on the afterburners and finished third, just two-seconds off the winning time. The top six runners from each heat, plus the next four fastest times qualified to run in the final.

Until Saturday afternoon, Dunbar wasn’t even assured of a place in the race. He qualified 25th out of 25, and could have been bumped if a faster runner had decided to run in the 5K. Five kilometers is just over 3 miles.

Dunbar is a Kodiak High School alum and three-time All-American sophomore at the University of Oregon.

Two other Alaskans are competing this week in Eugene: Jordan Clarke who is a shot-putter from Anchorage, and Janay DeLoach who is a high-jumper from Fairbanks.

Clarke qualified Saturday for the finals by finishing 8th in the preliminaries. DeLoach, who went to Eielson High School in Fairbanks and jumped for Colorado State, is a favorite to make the U.S. Olympic team. She’s the silver medalist in the World Indoor Championships earlier this year, and has a personal best of 22-feet 11-1/4-inches.

Olympic swimmer Rowdy Gaines says swimming is not for the faint of heart – and like most things in life, it requires dedication, commitment, responsibility, teamwork, focus, setting goals and taking risk.

“First and foremost on that list is dedication, commitment. And to me dedication means doing it through good times and bad times,” he told a Juneau audience Wednesday.

Gaines won three gold medals for the U.S. Olympic swim team in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. For the past 20 years he’s been a swimming analyst for network television. He also travels the country as a motivational speaker. He was the third and final speaker in this year’s Pillars of America series, sponsored by Juneau Rotary clubs.

“The champions I have found, at least in my sport, are the ones that can live through the good times – that’s so easy – but living through those valleys, that’s what’s so hard and that’s what makes a champion,” he said.

His Centennial Hall audience was comprised mostly of Juneau and Haines high school students. He said making mistakes is human – like this one at an Olympic trial:

“I’m really nervous. There are about 3,000 people in the audience, which is big for swimming, and back then it was ABC Wide World of Sports filming the whole thing. So I’m on the deck and I take my warm-ups off and hand them to my coach, and I start stretching — stretching out a little bit, swinging my arms, and kind of looking around — and all of a sudden it gets really quiet. Somebody yells ‘Rowdy, look down.’ And I look down and I’m completely naked,” he recalled to gales of laughter from the audience.

Despite that embarrassment, Gaines said he stayed committed to his goal, and made the Olympic team.

In 1991, at the age of 32, Gaines was temporarily paralyzed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. He called it a life-challenging event, and credits swimming for saving his life.

He told the students to maintain focus, never be afraid to fail, learn from their mistakes, and work with others as a team. Gaines said he gave his Olympic gold medals to his parents and coach because he could not have won without their support.

He called himself “just an athlete” and said “athletes should not be heroes.”

This is the 20th year Rotary has sponsored the Pillars of America series in Juneau.

It’s March Madness Alaska-style this week, as teams from around Southeast gather in Juneau for the 66th annual Gold Medal Basketball Tournament.

The event, organized by the Juneau Lions Club, has achieved legendary status in many of the small village communities that dot the panhandle.

KTOO’s Casey Kelly caught up with players and fans from Angoon as they made their way to the tournament on Saturday.

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For many teams a trip to Gold Medal starts here, aboard the state ferry LeConte or one of the other boats that make up the Alaska Marine Highway’s Southeast fleet.

“The blue canoe? It’s very important that we have the blue canoe,” says 36-year-old William Jay Booth III, who plays on Angoon’s C team – for players between the ages of 32 and 42. He grew up in Metlakatla, in what he calls a “ball family.”

“My whole family, all my brothers, are all ball players,” Booth says. “High school ball, a couple of them went to college for a little while. But eventually they moved home and did some fishing. They do still participate in a lot of tournaments, and the biggest one for them is Gold Medal.”

Booth says Angoon’s C team has been practicing since last year’s tournament, putting in extra work since January. The team is extra motivated this year, after playing just three games before getting knocked out of the 2011 Gold Medal. In a tournament where positions aren’t exactly defined for most players, Booth is looking to contribute with defense and hustle.

“I like the defense. I like to rebound. I like to get inside and bump elbows. That’s where I like to be at,” he says.

Angoon’s B squad – for players under age of 32 – is coming off two consecutive Gold Medal championships in their bracket. Twenty-one-year-old John Croasmun says the B team just hopes to avoid a letdown.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to lose, I want to win,” he says.

Croasmun says the Gold Medal tournament is all about bragging rights in Southeast Alaska.

“Growing up in Angoon, we played against Hoonah, Kake, Yakutat and all those villages,” he says. “You know, they all come together, and I know a lot of the guys and I’m pretty cool with most of them. You just get to see them again and say ‘Hi,’ and play against them. It’s like reliving high school.”

For Booth, it goes beyond bragging rights when he plays against his brothers on Metlakatla’s team. He says they always try to recruit him to play for their squad, but he switched allegiances when he moved to Angoon six years ago.

“I got to represent my community that I live in,” Booth says. “And I want my kids to see me running around with the Angoon jersey. But they know Metlakatla’s right there.”

Booth’s wife, Reanna Kookesh-Booth, is the daughter of State Senator Albert Kookesh – a Gold Medal Hall of Famer. She says the annual pilgrimage to the tournament sparks a lot of memories.

“It’s been a big part of my family’s life for as long as I can remember,” Kookesh-Booth says. “My dad played for many, many years, and as a child and growing up all through high school, every year we always went to Gold Medal.”

Kookesh-Booth says the atmosphere is the same no matter which teams are playing.

“There’s a lot of village chanting, you know, you hear a lot of ‘Hoonah!’ And a lot of ‘Angoon!’ Or ‘Haines!’ Everyone’s pretty much rooting for their village.”

The tournament lasts through Saturday at the Juneau Douglas High School gymnasium. Besides the B and C brackets, there’s also a Master’s Bracket for older players. This year’s Gold Medal is dedicated to the Reverend Dr. Walter Soboleff, who never missed a tournament before passing away last year at the age of 102.

The 66th Annual Gold Medal Basketball Tournament is underway in Juneau.

“C” and “B” bracket teams played first round games yesterday (Sunday).

In “B” bracket action – for players younger than 32 – Angoon beat Klukwan, 69-67; Haines beat Kake, 74-59; Metlakatla beat Hoonah, 92-89; and Hydaburg beat Yakutat, 93-81.

In the “C” bracket – for players between the ages of 32 and 42 – Kake beat Metlakatla, 79-72; Klukwan beat Hoonah, 89-80; Sitka beat Juneau, 90-68; and Yakutat beat Angoon, 86-63.

Master’s bracket action – for players over the age of 42 – got underway this afternoon, with Klukwan defeating Kake, 63-55.

Teams from all over Southeast participate in the popular Lion’s Club-sponsored tournament, which runs through Saturday at the Juneau Douglas High School gym.

For a full schedule and updated scores, go to goldmedalbasketball.org.

Thirty-seven alpine ski racers from the Juneau and Alyeska ski teams will represent Alaska at the Western Region Junior Olympics and the Arctic Winter Games next month.

The selections were made after two statewide qualifying races for junior skiers, ages 12 to 19, including the Eaglecrest Cup, held over the holiday weekend at Juneau’s ski area.

As Rosemarie Alexander reports, young racers from Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks competed in the Eaglecrest Cup over the recent holiday weekend.

Ruts formed quickly in the soft snow on the giant slalom race course. Juneau skier Rebekka Ord was 11th out of the gate for the first run.

She skied across the finish line in 58.16 seconds. It didn’t her take long to determine where she’d lost time.

“I’m like completing my turn a little after the gate, and it’s hard to make the next gate,” she said.

The remedy?

“I’m going to try to set up a little earlier for the gates, not get as late,” Ord said.

Races are often won by hundredths of a second, and these skiers need that special ability to quickly analyze their mistakes and know how to fix them. That comes from training, practice, and that “ah-hah” moment, said Dan Ord, head coach of the Juneau Ski Club.

“When these kids really come to the point where they say, ‘Alright, Dan told me to do this, I’m going to do it;’ if they don’t make that conscious decision, it’s not going to happen,” he said.

In her second giant slalom run, Rebekka Ord shaved more than two and a half seconds off her time. Teammate Ali Hiley also had some changes to make after the first run.

“Second run I think I’m going to stand on my downhill ski more. Get more weight on that so I’m not as bounced around,” she said. “Go straight at the gates.”

Hiley knocked off some time in her second run.

The GS and a slalom race were set on the trail named after Juneau’s Olympic medalist Hilary Lindh. The teens are chasing points to be ranked by the United States Ski and Snowboard Association. Alaska belongs to the Far West region.

“We sanction races for J-1, 2, 3 and 4 age classes, 12 to 18 years old. You know they race and compete against each other,” Coach Ord said.

The Eaglecrest Cup was a Junior Olympic qualifying race for J-3s, kids ages 13 and 14. J-1 and 2s, ages 15 to 19, qualified at the Alyeska Cup in Girdwood earlier this month. The older racers can earn seed points at both the national (USSA) and international (FIS) levels.

The final race of the Eaglecrest Cup, a combined giant slalom and slalom, was not a USSA-sanctioned race.

GS is faster and has fewer gates than slalom.

“They’re spread out. Your turn shape, let’s say, would be anywhere from a 20- to a 30-degree radius, so you really have time to draw it out,” he said, adding that GS requires both power and finesse.

“It’s a touch. It’s like a fine-tuned art to get it right. You can’t go straight at the gates and throw your skis sideways,” Ord said.

With slalom, the turns happen quicker.

“They’re a 10-meter radius and it’s kind of like a bap, bap, bap, you know. With the kids in slalom, one of the things I say is, ‘If you don’t feel like you’re out of control, you’re not going fast enough,’ ” he said, laughing, “but using all the fundamental skills that will allow them to stay in a course.”

At the Western Region Junior Olympics next month, the youth will race in GS, slalom and super G. Juneau racer Quincy Bates will compete with J-3s at Big Sky, Montana. Joe Greenough will race against fellow J-1 and 2s at Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho. Other Alaska team members are from the Alyeska Ski Club.

Juneau skiers Adrienne Audet and Shane Kelly will join Alyeska alpine skiers to represent Alaska at the Arctic Winter Games, also in March, in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Click here for Eaglecrest Cup results.