(Editor's Note: Murray Cook joins Green Sports Venues as a regular columnist. As someone working daily in the field, Murray has a unique view of how sports facilities can be made more green. If you have any questions for him, send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

This feature is the first in a series that I hope will generate some feedback into how we can do a better job taking care of Mother Earth. We all live in the same world, and as sports-facility and athletic-field managers we have a responsibility to do our part in the fight to improve the planet we live in, by being friendlier to the environment. If you haven’t heard, Mother Nature is telling us that she’s sick of how we are treating her -- it’s time for everyone to step up to the plate!

Over the past couple of years I have been working with the Beijing Olympics and spending quite a bit of time in Asia. My travels took me there 17 times in that two-year span, and the question I was asked most often about the Olympics was: “How is the pollution over there?” My response changed between 8-08-2007 and 8-08-08. In the summer of 2007 I spent most of my time there preparing for the Baseball Test event at the Wukesong Sportplex. I actually saw the sun burn through the pollution about four times in the month of August. At the end of the day I would head to the hotel and literally wash black soot off of my face (never mind what was lodged in my nasal cavity.) The level of the pollution was alarming, but one year later the government had made vast changes to the way people lived and worked in Beijing, resultong in better air quality. For instance, a new policy instituted alternating days for personal car travel based on the odd/even numbers on license plates. The government also reduced factory construction by 30 percent and planted over a million trees throughout the sports venues.

Everyone has watched some variety of TV show or documentary (think Al Gore) on how our earth is changing, and if you don’t believe it, just consider the climate changes and crazy weather we’ve had the past few years here in the United States. Recently I’ve read a couple reports that indicate we are moving in the right direction in the attempt to clean up our act, but we have a long long way to go. In my extensive travels I have witnessed some wonderful improvements to how some operators improve their ballparks and field-of-play operations. In this column, I plan to share what others are doing to transform their facilities to be eco-friendly ballparks, stadiums and arenas.

This is a team approach to a world problem, so I want to hear what your facility is doing to reduce greenhouse gasses, increase recycling or changing equipment usage. We can all learn from each other via the information highway. Looking forward to your stories and I will be sharing a few of my own.

With over 32 years of professional sports-venue and athletic-field management, Murray Cook has acquired a wealth of information regarding sports venue/field design, construction and maintenance. His industry knowledge as to the most current methods of athletic field, design and construction has been implemented at hundreds of professional and collegiate facilities around the world. As president of Brickman SPORTSTurf, a division of the Brickman Group, he has worked with numerous sport organizations and teams in the development of venues that are extremely efficient and user friendly. A few of his current and recent clients include Major League Baseball’s International Game development, the 2000, 2004 and 2009 Summer Olympics, the International Daseball Federation, Disney Sports Complex and numerous colleges and municipalities around the world. He averages about 250,000 travel miles a year performing stadium evaluations for sport federations. His division provides athletic field design, construction and project management to professional, collegiate and high-school stadiums as well as multi-sport complexes across the world. Send him mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .