By Christopher Baxter and Matthew Stanmyre | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 30, 2017 at 4:34 PM, updated January 30, 2017 at 8:00 PM
TRENTON — A leading state senator said Monday she will formally urge the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate the top U.S. maker of artificial sports fields, FieldTurf, after the company failed to answer key questions about its sales practices.
During a hearing, Sen. Nellie Pou (D-Passaic) led more than 90 minutes of questioning of the Canadian-based FieldTurf’s CEO, Eric Daliere, focusing on why company officials did not notify all customers of problems with its turf after they became apparent to executives.
“If it was clear that it happened to enough customers throughout the country, early enough, why weren’t actions, the appropriate actions taken?” said Pou, the chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Daliere offered a spirited defense of the company, noting that nearly all of the fields in question in New Jersey made it through their eight-year warranty period and emphasizing that the problems with its Duraspine turf did not create a safety hazard for those who used the field.
By Christopher Baxter and Matthew Stanmyre | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 24, 2017 at 5:07 PM, updated January 24, 2017 at 5:11 PM
A state Senate panel will hold a hearing Monday on a report that the leading maker of artificial sports fields in the U.S., FieldTurf, for years sold a popular line of turf to taxpayers across the country after knowing it was falling apart.
The hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. in Trenton before the Senate Commerce Committee, comes in response to an NJ Advance Media investigation published in December that called into question whether the company had committed fraud.
“This is a first step in our effort to determine exactly what happened and to take the action necessary at the state level to ensure that taxpayers are protected,” the chairwoman of the committee, Sen. Nellie Pou (D-Passaic), said in a statement.
She called the findings of the investigation “incredibly concerning.” The company has denied any wrongdoing.
The committee will hear testimony from FieldTurf executives, school officials and others who have been invited to testify, the statement said.
Ridgewood NJ, the positive highlight for many during last nights council meeting was the State Champion RHS Maroons football team members and Coach Chuck Johnson were presented with certificates of recognition and many well-deserved accolades receiving a huge round of applause to all of them.
Ridgewood Nj, Girls Lacrosse Coach Karla Mixon received the William Corcoran Service to Youth Award at the 51st Annual Greater Bergen County YMCA Sports Award Banquet held in November. Karla is pictured here with YMCA CEO Glenn MacAfee. Karla teaches science at BFMS.
If the her name sounds familiar Ridgewood girls lacrosse was named state Team of the Year and Karla Mixon was named state Coach of the Year for 2011 by the Star-Ledger.
By Tom Haydon | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 23, 2016 at 8:00 AM, updated December 23, 2016 at 10:36 AM
KENILWORTH — As a sixth-grader last year, Sydney Phillips earned a spot on the girls basketball team at St. Theresa’s School in Kenilworth. By the end of the season, she was picked as an all-star player.
This year, however, Phillips learned in October that St. Theresa’s was dropping the team because not enough girls were interested. Phillips and her parents quickly approached the school, seeking some options and finally requesting their daughter be allowed to play on the boys team.
Youth sports are a problem for parents. Kids love to play games and run around.
Parents ruin everything when they focus on travel teams, 11 month sports and private coaches. They can’t make up for what never happened in their youth.
Look at the parents who still post photos on Facebook of their kids playing sports. The kids are in college and the parents are afraid that we will forget that their kid is playing for a DIII school. No one cares!
Parents are investing more and more time, money, and emotional effort into their kids’ sports — despite what the research shows is best for kids.
by: Kirsten Jones Neff | July 9, 2016
Print article
A few years ago, when our youngest was 12, he waited for a pause in dinner conversation, then cleared his throat and told us that he did not want to play competitive sports anymore. For a moment, the family was stunned into silence.
Full disclosure: for the past decade, we’ve been that family, the one living and breathing our kids’ sports: driving cars full of cleated kids to remote, windblown corners of California to set up goals, sell cookies, shoot photos, run the clock, keep stats and even, yes, coach the teams. We’ve split up to attend different events and foregone family vacations to fly to other states for tournaments. Even as I write, I’m in the midst of organizing a trip to San Diego for my daughter’s high school lacrosse team.
Devotion to our children’s athletic endeavors has “paid off”: our oldest child competes on her university’s beach volleyball team, and our second was recruited to play college lacrosse. Because their sports required huge investments of time and money, my husband and I vowed to never get ahead of our children. They had to be eager to make sacrifices (miss school dances, family vacations, etc.) and at least appear thankful for our financial and logistical support. As it turned out, both daughters love their sports, despite the sacrifices involved. When our son began to play soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, we assumed the status quo: a yearly calendar jam-packed with sports priorities. It was jarring to hear he wasn’t happy. What did we do wrong?
By Christopher Baxter and Matthew Stanmyre | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 09, 2016 at 11:15 AM, updated December 09, 2016 at 10:15 PM
The state Legislature will hold hearings to examine the conduct of the nation’s leading maker of artificial sports fields, FieldTurf, after a report that the company made millions selling high-end turf for years after knowing it was falling apart.
Sen. Nellie Pou (D-Passaic) said Friday the Senate Commerce Committee wants to hear from top officials at the company, Montreal-based FieldTurf, as well as school districts and local officials to determine the extent of the alleged fraud.
“Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds were spent on this product that the company reportedly knew was defective and after its own executives began sounding alarms within the organization about the product failure,” Pou said in a statement.
Late in 2006, the CEO and co-founder of FieldTurf — the leading maker of artificial sports fields — urgently emailed a supplier about a new turf being marketed and sold to the public as the best money could buy.
The issue was so pressing, some of the messages went out on New Year’s Eve.
The subject was so troubling, it could cripple both companies.
And the problem was so basic, anyone could understand it: Fields were falling apart before they should.
Ten months later, FieldTurf executives flew to New Jersey to check out the product, known as Duraspine, in one of their most lucrative markets. They discovered more trouble. The turf was breaking apart and lying flat, undermining their own breathless marketing materials that heralded its revolutionary durability.
The stakes couldn’t have been higher. Sales to schools and towns across the country were skyrocketing, and the company was turning big profits off taxpayers. A problem this significant, if people knew, could cost tens of millions in warranty claims and ruin its prized reputation for quality.
So FieldTurf powered on, full steam ahead, keeping customers in the dark even as the Great Recession was forcing communities to cut school programs and lay off teachers and police officers.
All told, from 2005 until Duraspine was discontinued in 2012, records show FieldTurf sold 1,428 of the fields throughout the U.S. — including 164 in New Jersey — for an estimated $570 million in revenue.
By Jeff Goldman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on November 29, 2016 at 8:15 AM, updated November 29, 2016 at 10:05 AM
ROBBINSVILLE — Don’t even think about tailgating at any of the 23 high school football sectional finals that will be played this weekend around New Jersey.
The New Jersey State Interstate Athletic Association issued a ban on parking lot festivities at the four sites hosting championship games Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
In a statement issued Monday reminding fans that its events are drug and alcohol free, the governing body for high school sports in the state also said, “tailgating is strictly prohibited.”
“When you attend an NFL or Big Ten football game, for example, the entire environment is dedicated to fan entertainment,” NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko said in a statement. “But high school sports are different — even a state championship football game contested at Met Life Stadium is an extension of the classroom. And you don’t allow alcohol, drugs or tailgating at school.”
Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood Maroons scored 24 unanswered fourth quarter points to defeat Montclair, 31-20, preserving their undefeated season at the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 5 semifinals at Ridgewood.
Ridgewood will now take on third-seeded Passaic Tech in the sectional final on the weekend of Dec. 2-4. Last year in the final Passaic Tech beat Ridgewood, 27-0.
Montclair had led 14-7 at halftime behind its explosive offense and very opportunistic defense. Down 20-7 in the fourth quarter , Ridgewood Quarterback Jack Barclay connected with Drew Granski on a 54-yard touchdown reception making it a 20-14 game. With that ,the momentum shifted to the Maroons recovering a fumble on the first play from scrimmage on Montclair’s ensuing possession then ,scoring another touchdown .
The Ridgewood defense forced a punt by Montclair and then on a 3rd-and-8 from the Montclair 48, Barclay connected with Dan Romero for a 35-yard catch.Zach Feagles finished the drive with his second five-yard score to put Ridgewood ahead 28-20. Another fumble by Montclair was just icing on the cake giving Ridgewood a field goal to pull out a win .
Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood Maroons savor a sweet victory over Passaic Tech to remain undefeated this season . Ridgewood ranked is No. 16 in the NJ.com Top 20, and the Maroons got at least some small measure of revenge on Friday night, as they topped Passaic Tech, 14-7, in a rematch of last year’s North Jersey, Section 1, Group 5 final.
Last year they beat the Passaic Tech Bulldogs in the regular season,only to lose to them in the sectional final, 27-0, a few weeks later.
Ridgewood’s win puts their regular season record to 8-0 and almost guarantees a spot as the top seed heading into this year’s playoffs.
The win leaves Ridgewood with just one game left at home against Paterson Eastside next week and one win shy of a perfect regular season.
By Conor Orr
Around The NFL Writer
Published: Oct. 19, 2016 at 03:46 p.m.
Updated: Oct. 20, 2016 at 04:26 p.m.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed for the first time Wednesday a recent Wall Street Journal report that detailed a dip in television ratings over the first few weeks of the 2016 regular season.
While he mentioned various pitfalls, such as the monumental ratings drummed up amid the 2016 general election, he said that the NFL does not want to make excuses.
“It’s something that I don’t think there’s a single reason for. I really don’t. We look at all those factors,” Goodell said at the Fall League Meeting in Houston. “Everyone’s got theories, you guys got theories, others got theories. We work closely with our network partners. We see tremendous strength in our numbers. But we also know that the prime time ratings we’re seeing the most dramatic decrease. It went straight up against two very significant debates. Another one of our prime time games on Thursday night was on the NFL Network, as opposed to a network, which will always get a lower rating. There are a lot of factors to be considered.
“We don’t make excuses, we look at it and we try and figure out what’s changing. I think you’re touching at a point that I think is significant, which is consumer changes and their behavior, and the way they consume media. That’s something we’ve been focused on for several years. It’s why we’ve been doing more with with Snapchat and YouTube and others. And it’s why we did our work with Yahoo last year. … We’re seeing these changes. We recognize that network television is still dominant, and we believe it’s going to be dominant going forward. It’s where the vast majority of our fans view our games. It’s a great experience. The advertising markets are incredibly strong. I think our ratings are something that we’ll continue to look at and trying to make sure we’re doing everything, not just to get them to tune in but to get them to stay tuned in. That’s the issue, that’s what we’ve worked on.
Fans watching fewer NFL games cite protests as primary reason
Ratings in the NFL, while still stronger than any other challenger on the television landscape, continue to decline, and a new survey by Yahoo Sports and YouGov discerns several reasons why.
In a survey of 1,136 Americans who identified themselves as NFL fans, 29 percent said they are watching fewer NFL games. (Interestingly, 27 percent said they were watching more, though that does not necessarily correlate only a 2 percent net loss.) The fans claiming they watch less of the NFL cited the following reasons:
For many athletes who play on artificial turf, the tiny granules of rubber that pad the field are familiar and ubiquitous. The black specks often get trapped in folds of clothing, carried home in shoes or embedded in scrapes and under fingernails.
Crumb rubber infill — the most common material used in artificial turf fields across the country — is intended to improve safety and create a more accessible, easily maintained playing field. But after recent public concerns about possible health risks from exposure to crumb rubber, several local jurisdictions are searching for clearer answers about its potential dangers and considering alternatives.
Ridgewood NJ, according to a report on NorthJersey.com, Bergen Tech is dealing with too many injuries and was not able to compete in Thursday’s scheduled game against Ridgewood.
Sources say the Knights informed Ridgewood head coach Chuck Johnson on Tuesday afternoon that injuries against Cliffside Park and a player suspended had left the Knights short-handed to play the undefeated Ridgewood Maroons, ranked No. 2 in latest Bergen Record public rankings.
Bergen Tech is a member of the North Jersey Super Football Conference. The Knights were 0-5 before Thursday’s forfeiture to undefeated Ridgewood, who is also ranked No. 19 in the NJ.com Top 20.
