FARE THEE WELL, SODFATHER

NFL Groundskeeper Declares Slippery Super Bowl a Fiasco

“Me and the league are finished,” groused the 94-year-old George Toma, who claimed that a colleague hadn’t “done shit” to properly prepare the field for the big game.

Whether you know him as the Sodfather or the God of Sod, it’s undeniable that George Toma knows what he’s talking about when it comes to turf; he’s one of the few people still alive who can claim to have attended every Super Bowl game there ever was. So when he tells you that the issues plaguing the noticeably slippery field at Super Bowl LVII were entirely preventable, you listen. The league’s longtime groundsman, 94, told ESPN on Tuesday that the field hadn’t been allowed to dry properly after Ed Mangan, the senior field director in charge of the turf, practically drowned it. “So, what he does, he waters the hell out of it and puts it right into the stadium and that’s it,” Toma groused. “Never sees sunlight again. He can’t do that.” The allegedly shoddy prep work left the field with “a rotten smell,” according to Toma. Another of Mangan’s sins? “He sanded [the field] two weeks too late,” Toma said. “He had only one sanding. He should have had two or three sandings, but he didn’t do shit.” The LVII debacle was finally a bridge too far for the 94-year-old, who said he had finally retired. “I can’t take it anymore,” he said. “... Me and the league are finished.”