by Sarah Lane
As a former soccer player well acquainted with the hazards of sand-based soccer fields in the rainy Northwest, I can appreciate a soccer club’s frustration and desire to do something to improve playing conditions for its members. I know only too well the taste of a mouthful of muddy water and the sinking feeling of seeing a perfectly timed pass floating in a small pond halfway to its intended destination.
All across the nation, more and more high schools, colleges, and park districts are installing artificial turf …

Home Turf Disadvantage III
by Sarah Lane
plastic adj 5: capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction without rupture
(Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)
Sometimes when you lose a fight, after giving it your best, you just want a moment to take it in and figure out how to live with it. So it was particularly irritating when the other day Julie and I were reading the enormous signs announcing the installation of two artificial turf fields at our local park and at that exact moment a jogger shouted out, “Isn’t it great?!?” …