The turf from the SAC at my high school has very little significance to the outsider, yet anyone who has set a bare leg on that turf knows that sitting on it takes a level of perseverance and willpower that you didn’t know you had. Turf is supposed to be soft, to break the fall of players, to be comfortable for sports and activities. The turf at Plano West is not like the soft rubber that it should be. On this, you are condemned to sit upon a thousand tiny pebbles. A thousand tiny daggers stuck on your bottom and in your shoes.

The daggers in the SAC are covered in the dirt from sneakers and sweat. Don’t think too hard about that, just live with that fact. You have to land on it either way. I leave school with blackened kneecaps, there are very few cars left the parking lot.

I gathered this turf on me on a Thursday, 103 degrees, 2 hours in our dear student activity center, 36 girls. The turf was not just pulled out of the ground, but poured out of my socks and brushed off my knees. I leave and it follows me home, in my shower, in my car. Turf is stuck in the cars of hundreds of Plano West athletes. Turf lines the shower drains of football players and cheerleaders alike. No one is really very prideful of these pebbles stuck in their belly buttons, but how many tumbles did those students take to get it there?

The SAC has seen falls, breaks, bruises, and cuts. The turf really does make this insult to injury, but how many times do students return? No one gets those pebbles buried in their bottoms just for one day and then refuses to come back the next. Each day they walk back in, hold their breath, and encourage these little needles to resume their purpose. I have brought in this turf, but it is not the only turf that I have. I will have more tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Come see our next game, and know that it took lots of pebbles, in places where pebbles should not be, to get there.