WOODBURY — From landscaping with his dad to caring for the Nonnewaug baseball and softball fields, custodian Kevin Rodgers has always gotten the job done striping up the diamond.
When Rodgers first got to Nonnewaug, he started with maintaining the agriscience building. Seven years later, he started doing field maintenance for the Chiefs.
“I enjoy the job because it is outside and I get to work on my own,” said Rodgers, who studied history and nutrition at UConn.
He gets the softball and baseball fields ready in the spring along with the field hockey and soccer fields in the fall.
Rodgers, who has experience for the job and has been doing a great job with his work as the baseball field and the softball field are always ready for games.
“To prepare for the game, it’s mowing the outfield and the infield grass and getting the foul lines and batter’s box lines [down],” says Rodgers.
Nonnewaug athletes appreciate what he does to get the fields ready for games.
“He does a great job with keeping the field consistent and the foul lines straight,” said Dylan Bambino, a junior.
Field maintenance is an important part of the game. If the lines aren’t straight, there could be close calls towards the foul lines, and the umpire being able to see the line clearly is needed for those calls.
Making sure the length of the grass is appropriate is also important. The speed of the baseball could change if the grass is too short or too tall, and players say Rodgers did a great job making sure the grass was cut well before every game.
“The grass was always a good length and it was always looking really crisp as you walked down from the parking lot down the stairs to the field,” said junior Mathew Dutton.
Nonnewaug’s fields always look great to players and fans as they walk down the stairs, and Rodgers is responsible for that.
“Both the softball field and the baseball field had the same pattern in the grass,” said Bambino, who owns a landscaping business, “and it always looks good.”
