On George "Bo" Vanture's last day as an Arizona Wildcat, almost 32 years to the day, the school presented him with a copper-colored shovel.
There had been so many days Vanture could have used that shovel: to dig out the "ASU" painted by vandals on the Arizona Stadium turf ; to create a space where softball coach Mike Candrea could dispose of his chew at Hillenbrand Stadium; or to manicure the pitching mound at Kindall/Sancet Stadium, which, Vanture says, "is an art, not a job."
But the copper shovel that Vanture took home from Arizona Stadium is a keepsake, not a reminder that there is work to be done.
"It's funny, this is the first week I'm retired, and it rains on Monday," Vanture says. "And I'm expecting a call from someone saying, 'Bring me a drying agent to Hillenbrand.'"
A lot of guys can mow the grass, water the lawn and rake the infield to specifications, but few take ownership and go beyond the 9-to-5 relationship. Bo did.
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"Heck, we always had him in our team photograph," says Jerry Stitt, former UA baseball coach. "We considered Bo part of the team."
In a century of UA sports, the school has produced several Hall of Famers who never wore a uniform. The late Ed Thomas became an institution in the athletic equipment room; the area now bears his name. Charles "Bumps" Tribolet was indispensable, doing everything from announcing baseball games to helping balance the athletic budget.
And now comes - and goes - Bo Vanture, whose daily charge as Project Manager for Athletic Facilities was to make sure a soccer field, a shot put arena, a softball stadium, a football field and a baseball stadium were all game-ready.
"Every coach, from soccer to softball, has a daily expectation of game-type conditions," Vanture says. "That's what we gave them."
There isn't likely to be many, or any, Bo Vantures in the future. That's the real hook here. He is the last from a generation of pre-agronomists, pre-soil scientists who have now taken over facilities management at BCS-level schools. For example, Vanture's replacement, 32-year-old Matt Anderson, has a master's degree in crop and soil sciences.
Vanture's first assignment at Arizona, in 1980, was to work on the garbage collection brigade. No degree required.
The son of an Air Force minister, Vanture grew up in Colorado Springs and moved to Honolulu, where his only real grounds-keeping was mowing the greens at the golf course. He joined the Air Force and was stationed in Spokane, Wash., where he became enamored of Tucson by a colleague who "gushed about having lived here."
Vanture arranged a transfer to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where he met his future wife and ultimately was hired to work under Manny Munoz, himself something of a legend at the ballpark.
Little did Vanture know he was about to learn from a master.
"Manny was meticulous," Vanture remembers. "He would go out to the pitching mound with a bucket of clay and a pail of water and just work it - over and over - until it was perfect. Manny gave me room to grow: I had to learn by trial and error. He didn't have a college degree and neither did I -we are dinosaurs in the business - but we learned all the things turf scientists know."
In 1992, Vanture and his grounds crew were tabbed No. 1 nationally, maintaining the top football field in the country, by Sports Turf Management Association.
In 1994, they were selected Groundskeepers of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.
They survived a potential disaster in 1992, a day before the epic Arizona Desert Swarm upset over No. 1 Washington, when vandals broke into a control box and flooded parts of Arizona Stadium with two inches of water.
And they survived all the other odd emergencies; once they found what appeared to be some ash-covered turf at Arizona Stadium. Someone had sprinkled the ashes of a deceased loved one at the old field. Vanture and his crew have survived droughts, 110-degree days, sodding and re-sodding, the relocation of the football practice field to a spot that used to be a tennis facility and on and on.
"You've got to remember, the baseball field was built over an old neighborhood," he says. "We've found pieces of cement and bricks from old houses. One day an older gentleman walked onto the field and asked if he could take a look around. I asked why. He said, 'Because I grew up in a house where second base is."
The games went on anyway.
Now that he's retired, 32 years on the job but 57 years young, Vanture isn't done.
"I'm going to go out to the high school baseball fields at Salpointe and St. Gregory's and see if we can help," he says. "I'm sure I'll find a way to make myself useful."
Contact Greg Hansen at 573-4362 or ghansen@azstarnet.com
