JONESBORO, Ark. (11/21/06) - The new ProGreen artificial playing surface of Arkansas State University's Indian Stadium is one of several major football facilities featured in the November issue of Athletic Business magazine.

The article “Grass Gets Uprooted” outlines the reasons a number of Division I universities are switching from natural grass to the new synthetic fields which require little or no maintenance.

An aerial photograph of Indian Stadium is prominently featured along with photos of stadiums at Colorado State, Indiana, Wake Forest, SMU, and Utah State.

The article by Paul Steinbach chronicles the evolution of natural grass to the artificial grass and provides charts of each football conference depicting which schools have made the switch. Currently, five of the eight members of the Sun Belt Conference, of which ASU is a member, have synthetic football playing surfaces.

In addition, the article provides information supporting the switch for a variety of reasons including increased number of days per year the field can be in use, decreased costs in field maintenance, and water-saving capabilities.

Arkansas State installed artificial turf in the summer of 2006. Former Indian players financed the project mostly through donations.

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