Super Bowl grass gets small town sendoff

<p>A marching band played as the governor arrived by helicopter and hopped aboard a tractor in front of 30 invitation-only guests.</p><p>Cutting grass doesn't normally get this kind of fanfare. But the turf being harvested like rolls of carpet Thursday on Phillip Jennings' central Georgia farm isn't just any grass.</p><p>It's the field for next month's Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.</p><p>"Going from the wheat, cotton and soybean days to this Super Bowl harvest, I'm obviously excited," said Jennings, who began growing turf in 1997. "For the last few months, I watched football games with a different perspective."</p><p>Working with Georgia-based Pennington Seed, which has provided grass seed for three straight Super Bowls, Jennings spent the past 18 months growing the mix of perennial ryegrass, Kentucky bluegrass and a Bermuda grass hybrid called Princess 77. The resulting turf stays green in winter and is tough enough to withstand the punishment from players' cleats.</p><p>The turf got its first test when Gov. Sonny Perdue's helicopter landed on the 4-acre field resembling a lush fairway.</p><p>Perdue made the ceremonial first cut, pulling blades behind a tractor to slice the sod into strips 1 3/4-inch deep and 42 inches wide. He also put in a plug for his personal favorite to play in the Super Bowl, the Atlanta Falcons.</p><p>"We're certainly hopeful coach (Jim) Mora and Michael Vick can have the Falcons playing on this turf in a month," Perdue said. "It's hard for me to imagine that NFL players are going to be playing on a grass called Princess, though."</p><p>It will take at least a week to cut the 4-acres of sod and 40 trucks to transport it 270 miles to Jacksonville's Alltel Stadium, where the National Football League's championship game will be played February 6.</p><p>"It's ready," said George Toma, the NFL turf guru who has prepared fields for all 39 Super Bowls. "It has excellent, excellent footing. It's good turf."</p><p>Jennings admitted it will be a relief putting his turf in Toma's hands. He started seeding the field seven months before the last Super Bowl and in the past few months it has required daily grooming.</p><p>Once word of Jennings' field got out in Riddleville, a town of 124 people 55 miles east of Macon, it also required round-the-clock security.</p><p>"Somebody could have come over here and cut a piece out and put it on eBay. That's what I was worried about," said Washington County Sheriff Thomas Smith, who said he kept a deputy watching over the field everyday.</p><p>But some locals did get a Super Bowl souvenir. The 30 guests who received invitations from Jennings to attend the turf's send-off Thursday got small clay pots planted with spare chunks of the Super turf.</p>

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