Earthquakes field manager Kevin Moore has represented a feel-good story at Buck Shaw Stadium these last seven years.
Make that a field-good story.
The Mountain View High School graduate, along with fellow turf gurus Salvador Barajas and Ruben Gomes, has worked diligently behind the scenes so the team could put its best footing forward.
Clearly, Moore knows his turf.
On game days, Moore and crew will mow the grass, monitor moisture content and paint the lines, among other tasks, at old Buck Shaw.
Like everyone else, Moore will have mixed feelings of nostalgia and excitement when the leave Buck Shaw to Quakes open their New Stadium in 2015.
“The field is something I never planned doing, and now it’s become a regular part of my life, so it’s sad to see that part go,” he said.
The excitement stems from the club’s moving to its new stadium. Moore also manages the turf at the practice facilities.
“It’s really exciting,” he said of the new digs. “Look at the stadium. It’s unbelievable, from what we’ve come from to where we are now with the new stadium. It’s a brand new turf field. It’s pretty much a state-of-the art field.”
While the Quakes have enjoyed much success at Buck Shaw, the weather event Moore will never forget came on opening day against Real Salt Lake in 2011. They survived the Great Deluge.
“It was pouring all day,” he recalled of the wind-whipped rainstorm that got worse as the game went on. “We actually had to run out and get tennis court squeegees to get the water off the field before the game and at halftime, just to get the game in. I had never done that before.”
Unlike a tackle football field which is built with a crown for drainage, soccer fields are completely level. The water has nowhere to go during a rainstorm.
In a soccer sense, Moore has come a long way. He was primarily a ‘tackle football’ field manager at Stanford Stadium, and had never seen a soccer game before coming to Santa Clara.
Quakes coaches gave him a crash course in ‘Soccer 101.’
“They figured out pretty quickly that I had no idea, and they taught me about soccer,” Moore said. “I’d had soccer games at my fields before, but I actually just never watched them because it was never interesting to me, because I didn’t grow up with it.”
Today, he is a soccer nut who watches major matches in his spare time.
“It’s crazy,” he says. “My wife makes fun of me because I watch international soccer at home … We actually had the U.S. national team at Stanford this year, which would have meant nothing to me seven years ago.”
But his green thumb is always a part of the equation. Moore says he watches every MLS recap replay to see how they’re doing at every other field.
You could say his soul has been fertilized with soccer fever.