A different road

Once upon a time Larry Rhodes was a walk-on defensive back on the Elon football team who got the majority of his playing time on special teams, the least glamorous assignment. Elon was then an inconspicuous college in an inconspicuous town.

But Dusty, Larrys father, was not an absent parent. He and his wife, Peggy, traveled to all of Larrys games. Thats how their love affair began with the school and Burlington.

Elon could not have picked a better man to become its most generous donor. This was a man who had graduated from Purdue University, who taught biology and coached high school baseball in Dearborn, Mich., who worked as an athletic trainer with the Los Angeles Rams, who learned computer programming and teamed with baseball Hall of Famers Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean to bring computer-generated statistics to televised games on CBS. All this before he and a group of entrepreneurs started Cisco Systems in 1988, now a leader in technology with more than 35,000 employees.

They would call Dusty Rhodes a chip off the old block, as Larry puts it. He is both prominent and compassionate, dignified and personable.

If Dusty is a chip off the old block, Larry said, Im the jagged edges. Larry is both rugged and professional. He has the respect of his crew members and Elons coaches.

Larry smoothed some of those edges bouncing around to various jobs after graduating in 1986. Two years later, he came back to Elon, worked with the landscaping department and eventually earned an associates degree in Landscaping and Turf Management from North Carolina State University.

In 1990, Dusty moved with his wife to Elon permanently to set up the Cisco Systems Research and Development Center in Research Triangle Park. He joined the Elon Society in 1994, became a member of the Board of Trustees in 1997. Then the Rhodess name began showing up on plaques in McMichael Science Center, Belk Library, Koury Center and the Koury Business Center, as permanent reminders of the familys love for Elon.

All the while Larry began his path as a sports turf expert, getting his first real experience when he took a job as the head groundskeeper for the Charlotte Knights in 1994, a minor league baseball team.

That was about taking what I had learned from State and applying it hands on, Larry said. I was starting to take the step towards the professional level.

His dedication was evident by how much time he spent at the fields. The Knights job entailed 14-, 16- and sometimes 18-hour days over the course of a long baseball season.

I got worn out pretty quickly, Larry remembers.

In 1996, Larry won groundskeeper of the year honors and abruptly quit. Three years of grueling hours had worn on his spirits.

But life at Elon has been more enjoyable. Hes happily married to his wife, Scarlett, with son Dalton, daughter London Jo and his parents close by. Even though most people will see the family name above McKinnon Field, the money that put the name there means little to Larry.

As a joke weve all said hes spent our inheritance, Larry said. But Id like to have my parents around all the time. Id trade the money for that.

Just three years ago, Larry became a certified sports turf manager, one of only 66 in the entire country that manage major sports facilities.

Perhaps hes never shook Colin Powells hand like his father or spawned a multi-million dollar corporation from the ground up, but Larry found the same home as his parents.

I just took a different road than my dad, Larry said. I think Ive been equally as successful in some ways.

More important things

When Elon kicks off to start its last game of the season, Larry is standing in the corner of McKinnon Field with the rest of the crew. They banter on and on about football, much of their conversation lost in the chilled wind of the Saturday evening. Larry is silent while he watches the game.

The air is cold, the kind of cold that suffocates and freezes the toes unless you wear rough work boots like Larry. Few fans showed up to brave the conditions.

Pretty poor, Larry remarks of the sparse crowd.

The teams are playing at full steam, their pads colliding, cleats digging in. This is the real test for the field.

The Citadel running back takes a hand off looking to run left. Just as he is about to burst through the offensive line, he slips and Elon defenders swarm to pin him to the ground.

Must be one of those divots, jokes Keith Osbourne, an intern working for Larry.

Larry smiles. One that didnt heal right.

But otherwise the field holds up, with or without the help of Mother Nature. Larry stands silent watching the game unfold on the field he and his crew worked on since Nov. 15, 2006 to make ready.

This is when things are out of your hands, Larry said. Youve done your job. I have control over the field, but I have no control over what happens on it.

When the team loses, time drags painfully. Larry must wait until the final whistle to get every piece of equipment off the field. So the game quickly becomes an after-thought as Larrys seven-year-old daughter, London Jo, leans over the end zone wall and yells, Daddy!

Larry walked over and leaned up to kiss her on the cheek.

Hows Daltons eye? he asked of his eight-year-old.

Its swollen, London Jo answered.

Where is he now? Larry said.

Hes asleep, she replied.

Just as quickly as she came to kiss her daddy, London Jo runs off to play with friends in the grassy hill behind the end zone. Larry keeps one eye on the game and a fathers eye on his daughter.

There are things more important than this job, he said.

Back at Latham Park, the sun had almost climbed to its zenith in the mid-morning while Larry and his crew finished their work. Coach Mike Kennedy and his team would arrive soon to begin practice for an afternoon game. A warmth was piercing through the morning cold.

Larry has the most fun working at Latham Park. Rhodes Stadium may evoke more emotion and pride, but the baseball diamond is Larrys first love.

Larry took a can of burgundy spray paint and a stencil from the John Deere tractor and laid it on the pitchers mound. He sprayed in staccato strokes, back and forth, back and forth, grunting when he sprays outside the stencil.

After the last few strokes, his masterpiece is complete: A Phoenix insignia. Hell do the same to the bullpen mounds, spraying on the emblem of the Southern Conference in blue.

We like to let people know who we are, Larry said, a smirk on his face.

Such is his loyalty to the school that first educated him, then employed him and in the process has given him a home.

I guess hes calmed down a bit, groundskeeper Scott Stevens said, . Hes at the point in his career where hes finally getting recognition.

Yet every week he rakes and sprays as the birds begin to chirp. His salary requires 2,080 hours of work, but Larry spends close to 2,800 hours on the fields, in part because he has to and in part because he cant help it. The passing of seasons just brings a new field to maintain.

He is the hardest working and most dedicated employee, said Tom Flood, superintendent of landscaping and grouns. In season, he must work 60-hour weeks. Hes a competitor. Hes always striving.

After all the striving and early mornings over the weekend, the field is done. Fans will fill the bleachers and leave, perhaps without ever noticing the beautiful diamond.

Its certainly not a glamorous job, Larry admitted. But I wouldnt have it any other way.

So he surveys the field. Behind his tinted sunglasses, his eyes scan all over, gazing out over the work of his crew.

Not bad, he decides. Not bad.

By the end of the day, the white foul lines will be stomped and destroyed by players hustling down the base paths. The Phoenix on the pitchers mound will fade. Dirt will scatter as infielders dive to stop ground balls, just young men playing their hearts out. Nothing will look as it did before.

And so Larry must do it all again, all the raking, dragging and mowing before the sun rises, so when fans pour into the bleachers for the next game they see something close to perfection.

But they wont see the shadows Larry works under in the mornings. Nor do many know of the shadow of his name, the one that makes him work as hard as he does. For now, the shadows are gone as the time approaches for the first pitch.

And in the prime of his life, with a loving family, a job worth getting up at 5 a.m. and his parents by, Larry has worked enough to lift the shadows away and begin to cast his own.

Reporter: Brian Paglia - 02/22/07