‘I wish the Chiefs would win’: Super Bowl groundskeeper turns 91 on Sunday
As Patrick Mahomes and his Chiefs teammates step onto the field for Super Bowl LIV, they’ll be treading on a piece of home.
The machine that laid the sod for the brand-new turf at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens was built by a company in Hillsdale, Kansas, said longtime Super Bowl groundskeeper George Toma.
“Kansas is on the field already,” said Toma, who still lives in Westwood, Kansas. “The fingerprints of Kansas City is on every blade of grass here, and then some.”
Toma, who spent much of his earlier career in Kansas City, has worked on all 54 Super Bowl fields. This year’s, however, is special. Sunday’s game between the Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will be held on his 91st birthday and is the first Super Bowl in 50 years for his former employer, the Kansas City Chiefs.
“I hate to say this for the 49ers but I wish the Chiefs would win for Lamar Hunt because he named the Super Bowl the Super Bowl,” Toma said.
It’s been 30 years since Toma was employed in Kansas City, but he said the place still holds a special place in his heart.
Toma worked closely with Hunt and has known his wife, Norma Hunt, since Toma accompanied Lamar Hunt to the airport the weekend of Super Bowl I between the Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers, he recounted.
“I’ve been away from the Chiefs now for 30 years and, to this day, Norma sends me and my family season tickets every year,” he said.
Toma originally came to Kansas City in 1957 to work on the field for the Kansas City Athletics baseball team. At the time, he said, he had an offer in Kansas City and Denver.
“I said well I’m going to Kansas City because the field’s so bad if I messed it up nobody would know about it,” Toma said. “By the Fourth of July we had the best field in baseball.”
During Super Bowl I, Toma said, the field was prepared by a four-person team with a trunk of equipment. Now there are 40 people and truckloads of material.
In the days leading up to Super Bowl LIV, the team only has about four hours a day to ensure things are ready. Even once the game starts, Toma said, his focus will be on the turf.
“I don’t watch the game, I watch the cleats,” he said. “The first thing you have to do is get the players a safe playing field.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 12:21 PM.
