RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
When San Francisco and Kansas City kick off in tomorrow's Super Bowl, they'll compete on a field prepped by the greatest groundskeeper in the history of sports - that's according to the NFL and others. A man who's worked every single Super Bowl and earned nicknames like the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Man and the Sod Father. His real name is George Toma, and his job...
GEORGE TOMA: We're here to help to have good grass, so we give the players a safe playing field and give the fans in the stands and on TV a field of beauty.
MONTAGNE: That is George Toma, who is 90 years old.
TOMA: And Sunday, I'll be 91 years old.
MONTAGNE: Of course, a birthday on Super Bowl Sunday is even more special considering his home club, Kansas City, is back in the big game for the first time in a half century. George Toma was on hand in 1967 for Super Bowl 1, and as the game's prestige grew, so, too, did complications for the groundskeeper.
TOMA: Thousands of kids jumping up and 35 pieces of stage coming out, and some of them weigh as much as 8,000 pounds.
MONTAGNE: And as far as maintaining a pitch-perfect pitch for the players, that is both an art and a science, says Trevor Vance.
TREVOR VANCE: I'm a senior director of grounds and landscaping for the Kansas City Royals.
MONTAGNE: Vance got his sod-laying start under the master.
VANCE: People can paint a football field, or people can really paint a football field with colors and everything.
MONTAGNE: And Vance says George Toma can really paint, not just the grid lines but bright logos in the end zones and on 50-yard lines. Born in 1929, Toma got his start at 12 years old working for a Class A baseball club in Pennsylvania. And after the Korean War, he landed in Kansas City, where Trevor Vance joined his grounds crew.
VANCE: And we all started such a young age that George would always make sure on Friday he'd come in and really chew our butts really good saying, you know, you better behave yourselves this weekend. I need you to work Monday. So he really helped us grow up.
MONTAGNE: And those Kansas City ties mean Toma is rooting for the Chiefs tomorrow.
TOMA: But I have a lot of respect for the 49ers.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: ...About the weather. And here's the way it shapes up...
MONTAGNE: Oh, the 49ers. The weather really mattered back in 1982 when Toma was at San Francisco's Candlestick Park for one big playoff game.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Clear and mild after 6 1/2 inches of rain earlier in the week...
TOMA: We had to pump water out, and this one lady was so outstanding.
MONTAGNE: A lady with a lot of clout in San Francisco who moved heaven and earth to make sure the field was re-sodded and ready.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Third and three...
MONTAGNE: For a game that would feature a fourth-quarter play now known simply as The Catch.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Montana looking, looking, throwing in the end zone. Caught it. Dwight Clark.
MONTAGNE: That would be Joe Montana throwing to Dwight Clark.
TOMA: Sportswriters and casters said that was the most artistic play they've seen in ages. And they said it was on a great playing field.
MONTAGNE: A great playing field that George Toma takes no credit for.
TOMA: That credit goes to the woman that was down there in her rain hat, her trench coat. And that lady was Mayor Dianne Feinstein.
MONTAGNE: George Toma has saved countless fields, but his good friend Trevor Vance says the Sod Father's own lawn - well...
VANCE: George manages to kill his yard every year.
TOMA: That's true because I experimented with different grasses, different fertilizers, things like that. Like my wife tells me, there's no money in the world that can pay me to do what I do because it's what I love to do.
MONTAGNE: And here's an early happy birthday to the Sod Father.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.