Mendota, CA – Nestled in the heart of California’s Central Valley in Fresno County, Mendota is an agricultural community with a strong heritage and community pride with generations of hard-working people striving to make a better life for their children. For Coach Robert Mejia, the Mendota High School athletic program is an opportunity to highlight the importance of education through sports as a path to college. Coach Mejia uses his time on the field to emphasize perseverance, patience, respect, fairness, integrity, hard work and dedication to each other. The Aztecs, known far and wide for their accomplishments, were featured in a one hour ESPN documentary in early 2014 in addition to an ABC News 20/20 piece that aired later that summer featuring the lives and stories of the student-athletes, the success of the regional championship football team and the fact that each player maintained greater than a 3.0 grade point average.
This past summer, the Mendota Unified School District has dedicated its precious resources for a new field for their champions. They relied on their coaches to determine the best options for the best all-around turf field that will serve the Aztecs into the next decade and with summer temperatures reaching well past 100 degrees, there was only one turf infill option they considered for the safety of their students.
Coach Mejia had experience with visiting many turf fields in his career and was determined to utilize Greenplay® organic infill in his new field. He called upon an expert in turf performance and safety utilizing organic infill; Dominick Berarducci, Regional Sales Manager at AstroTurf®. Dominick designed the ultimate turf system to replicate a pristine natural grass field for the Aztec’s by utilizing Greenplay® CorkonutTM organic infill in his AstroTurf® Rhino blend synthetic turf installed over a Brock shock pad.
Coach Mejia states “The field is amazing, and the families around here really appreciate the organic infill as we are surrounded by acres of almond groves. There is no odor, it’s not abrasive and there is no fly-out like rubber infill.” He adds “But what’s most important for the players is the temperature of the field on hot days, especially when they are in full gear. The Greenplay infill holds moisture, it’s more in line with real grass and it’s amazing how much cooler it is than any other turf field we have played on this summer. I would highly recommend Greenplay infill to every school.”
About AstroTurf®
For athletes and sport enthusiasts, AstroTurf® has redefined the way the game is played. The brand offers advanced, state-of-the-art, multi-sport and specialized synthetic turf systems with proprietary engineered technologies. A growing number of high schools, colleges, professional sports teams and municipalities continue to select AstroTurf-branded products for their premium quality, technical superiority, and safety. To learn more, visit AstroTurf’s newly redesigned website at www.astroturf.com.
About Greenplay®:
Greenplay Organics, LLC is a US based company that manufactures and distributes Greenplay® CorkonutTM with player safety as its top mandate. Every order starts with materials sourced exclusively from pesticide-free crops and blended in-house by utilizing proprietary natural processing methods so that quality, performance, and durability are vertically integrated from the production facility to the turf. Greenplay Organics also provides the highest quality pure granular cork proven in FIFA 2 Star certified professional fields. www.greenplayusa.com