Imagine the brashness of a then-32-year old athletic director from a successful but little-known university walking into the AstroTurf plant in Dalton, Ga., to order a blue football field.
“I said, ‘Hey, I want to do blue,’ and their eyes got real big,” Gene Bleymaier recalls. “They said, ‘Well, we’ve never done blue before.’ I told them, ‘I know, but we’d really like to do it.’ And, then, they tried to talk me out of it, saying they weren’t sure how it would react to the ultraviolet rays of the sun and all that. When I told them I could go elsewhere, they said, ‘OK, OK.’ ”
Thirty-four years later the decision to color outside conventional lines by ditching the traditional green field has proved positively golden for the Boise State Broncos in building a brand as well as fattening their win column and bank account.
“The Blue,” as the field that Hawaii will play the 14th-ranked Broncos (5-0) on Saturday is reverently known, stands as one of the toughest places for a visitor to win in college football. UH is 0-6 there and has been outscored by an average of 35 points but is hardly alone in frustration. Since 2000, the Broncos are 116-9 (.928) at home, a key contributor to 21 consecutive winning seasons.
The now-FieldTurf’s fame is such that when the sixth generation was laid down this summer the occasion was celebrated with an invitation-only viewing party for donors and season-ticket holders and pieces of the old rug were sold.
The turf has become a selfy-must tourist attraction where tours are given. It is also a popular site for weddings.
But those are just tertiary benefits of breaking the turf color barrier and trademarking it. What the curiosity really did was give Boise State a claim to fame that, in some ways, helped open the way for the visibility and nationally ranked success the Broncos enjoy.
Boise State coaches have long since stopped being surprised when they introduce themselves to prospective recruits and are greeted with, as one former Bronco coach put it, an enthusiastic, “ ‘… that blue turf is great.’ ”
It has also been a hit with sponsors. The Albertsons supermarket chain is anteing up $12.5 million over 15 years to have its name on the place. Proceeds from the deal have helped the Broncos underwrite one of the more lucrative cost of attendance stipends in the West at more than $3,000 annually per scholarship athlete.
The Broncos haven’t been above attempting to play mind games with visiting opponents, imbuing their home field with special powers. Unsupported urban legend had it that birds would dive to their death on the turf, mistaking it for the nearby Boise River. Bleymaier, tongue-in-cheek, liked to say he could “neither confirm nor deny” the reports but did suggest it could disorient visiting players.
Some coaches have bought in to a mystique, among them San Diego State’s Rocky Long, who suggested in 2011 that, “It takes the visiting team a quarter or two to get used to that different field.”
Years later, Long backed off the contention, but others have sought to ban the blue-on-blue combination of uniforms and turf.
The now-retired Bleymaier said he saw “The Blue” as something that would help his school stand out as it tried to make the leap into NCAA Division I status. “We had green AstroTurf and, just because it was green didn’t mean it was fooling anybody into thinking it was real grass. If we were going to spend ($500,000) I wanted people to notice. If it had stayed green, nobody would notice.”
First, though he had to convince the school president, who took a week to think it over. Then, the two of them pledged to keep it secret until the installation began. “We didn’t even tell the football coaches,” Bleymaier said. “If word had leaked out (the plan) would have gotten blown to bits.”
So, why blue?
Bleymaier said, “Because our school colors are orange and blue, and while I might have been crazy, I wasn’t stupid. Orange would have been a stretch.”
HOME FIELD EDGE
(Record at home since 2000)
1. Boise State 116-9 .928
2. Oklahoma 110-10 .917
3. Ohio State 124-14 .899
4. LSU 117-19 .860
5. Georgia 105-20 .840
6. Oregon 105-23 .8203
7. Alabama 114-25 .8201
8. Wisconsin 111-25 .816
9. TCU 95-22 .812
10. USC 99-25 .798
11. Florida 102-26 .797
12. Michigan 108-28 .794
Source: Boise State.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
