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Patriots have habit of Super Bowl trips, Rams are newcomers

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; As Edwardsville native George Toma prepares the field for his 53rd consecutive Super Bowl, his thoughts again have been focused on the people of &#8220;The Valley with a Heart.&#8221;</p><p>Toma, who turned 90 on Saturday, said he will always credit the people of the Wyoming Valley for preparing him for life.</p><p>&#8220;And please tell all of the people back home that their fingerprints are on every Super Bowl field,&#8221; Toma said.</p><p>Although he&#8217;s lived away from Edwardsville for many years, Toma hasn&#8217;t forgotten his old stomping grounds.</p><p>&#8220;Every Hall of Fame I&#8217;m in and every award I&#8217;ve received has the fingerprints of every person from Wyoming Valley on it,&#8221; Toma said. &#8220;May their good fortunes be as numerous as blades of grass.&#8221;</p><p>Toma does have one regret this year &#8212; he was hoping his beloved Kansas City Chiefs would have made it to Super Bowl LIII, but Tom Brady and the New England Patriots instead are in Atlanta to take on the Los Angeles Rams in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.</p><p>&#8220;I was all set to paint one end zone in the Chiefs colors,&#8221; Toma said. &#8220;Maybe next year.&#8221;</p><p>Toma, now a resident of Kansas City, Missouri, said George Brett, the Hall of Fame third baseman for the Kansas City Royals, once told him the key to success is to always do the job &#8220;and then some.&#8221; Toma said that&#8217;s the way he operates and that&#8217;s what he teaches.</p><p>&#8220;We gotta do the job and then some,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I teach and then some. It&#8217;s what separates the average from the mediocre from the great.&#8221;</p><p>Toma learned his trade when he helped his Edwardsville neighbor, Stan Scheckler, at Artillery Park in the 1950s. He is now regarded as the foremost authority on groundskeeping and field preparations. His nicknames are &#8220;The Sod God&#8221; and &#8220;The Nitty Gritty Dirt Man.&#8221;</p><p>Toma was waiting for the Patriots and Rams to finish practicing on the field Saturday. He and the 30-man crew will then make the final preparations to the FieldTurf surface. Toma said they will work well into the early morning hours, making sure the field looks perfect and is safe to play on.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s my birthday, so I&#8217;ve been getting a lot of calls and people are stopping by,&#8221; Toma said. &#8220;I&#8217;m hoping to see my good friend Robert Kraft (Patriots owner) today.&#8221;</p><p>Toma said for the first Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs &#8212; won by the Packers 35-10 on Jan. 15, 1967 &#8212; he had five days and a six-man crew to prepare the Los Angeles Coliseum, plus a truck and a box of tools.</p><p>&#8220;But we got it done,&#8221; he said.</p><p><strong>Commissioner impressed</strong></p><p>Five years ago, Toma visited the Wyoming Valley and stopped by the place where it all began &#8212; Artillery Park, which is now where Wilkes University&#8217;s athletic fields are near Kirby Park.</p><p>Toma moved on to Buffalo and Charleston, S.C., to work for minor league baseball teams. In 1957, he was hired to be the head groundskeeper for the major league Kansas City Athletics.</p><p>It was in the mid-1960s that then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was introduced to Toma&#8217;s work.</p><p>&#8220;Pete Rozelle came to Kansas City for a press conference before that first championship game and he was asked if he saw any differences between the NFL and AFL,&#8221; recalled Toma. &#8220;Mr. Rozelle said he didn&#8217;t see much difference in the caliber of play, but he had never seen a more beautiful, well-prepared playing field than the one in Kansas City.&#8221;</p><p>That led to Toma&#8217;s association with a super run with the sporting event.</p><p>Toma is the son of a coal miner. His father died when he was 10 and neighbor Scheckler, who had a small grocery store in Edwardsville, was like his second father. Toma said Scheckler knew he was a hard worker. Toma worked at Garrahan&#8217;s Farm in the Narrows section of Edwardsville, where he was paid 10 cents an hour for 10 hours a day, six days a week.</p><p><strong>Enthusiasm, knowledge</strong></p><p>Toma is well known and respected throughout the sports world.</p><p>His colleagues, many of whom Toma trained and helped get their first jobs, are now working for NFL and Major League Baseball teams. They credit Toma for blazing a trail for each of them.</p><p>Pete Wozniak is working on his 24th Super Bowl with Toma. Wozniak, 53, has been the facilities manager at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, for 23 years.</p><p>&#8220;I would not be where I am if not for George Toma,&#8221; Wozniak said. &#8220;A lot of us here can share that same thought.&#8221;</p><p>Wozniak said even at age 90, Toma still works as hard as ever.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve said this many times, if I could do half of what he does, I would be thrilled,&#8221; Wozniak said. &#8220;It&#8217;s unbelievable to see his energy level and his enthusiasm. And his knowledge goes without saying.&#8221;</p><p>Wozniak said Toma knows everybody there is to know and he marvels at how Toma has adapted to all the changes in his business over the years.</p><p>&#8220;Believe me, a lot has changed in our business,&#8221; Wozniak said. &#8220;George has all the knowledge. Simply put, George Toma created the job that the rest of us have right now.&#8221;</p><p>And at Toma&#8217;s side again is his son, Ryan, who at 35 is attending his 36th Super Bowl. Toma likes to tell the story of how former CBS announcer Phyllis George held Ryan at Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa when Ryan had not yet reached his first birthday.</p><p><strong>&#8216;Work way past midnight&#8217;</strong></p><p>Toma was born in Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in 1929. He has never forgotten where he came from and he enjoys talking about those good old days.</p><p>&#8220;I often think about all those coal miners who worked so hard and the women who worked in the silk mills,&#8221; Toma said. &#8220;They all did the job &#8212; and then some.&#8221;</p><p>Toma also recalled the sports rivalries of the Wyoming Valley, of taking the street car to Huber Field in Plymouth and to Wilkes-Barre to watch Meyers play.</p><p>When he was 16, his uncle bought him a line machine to put down baselines at local parks.</p><p>And now he&#8217;s putting the finishing touches on the field that will host the biggest sporting event in the world.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll get the field soon and we&#8217;ll work way past midnight,&#8221; he said Saturday.</p><p>George Toma, doing his job as always &#8212; and then some.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Edwardsville native George Toma, who got his start at Artillery Park, is again heading up the grounds crew at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Toma has helped prepare the field for all 53 Super Bowls. He turned 90 on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-A-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Edwardsville native George Toma, who got his start at Artillery Park, is again heading up the grounds crew at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Toma has helped prepare the field for all 53 Super Bowls. He turned 90 on Saturday. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-A-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Edwardsville native George Toma, who has worked on every field for all 53 Super Bowls, poses for a recent photo while in the Atlanta area for Super Bowl LIII. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-A-3.jpg</photo1><caption1>Edwardsville native George Toma, who has worked on every field for all 53 Super Bowls, poses for a recent photo while in the Atlanta area for Super Bowl LIII. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-MAIN-FIELD-SHOT.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, will host Super Bowl LIII. George Toma, who grew up in Edwardsville, has been diligently working on the field to ensure it looks the best it can and is safe for players. Toma, 90, is working on the playing surface with a 30-man crew. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-MAIN-FIELD-SHOT.jpg</photo2><caption2>Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, will host Super Bowl LIII. George Toma, who grew up in Edwardsville, has been diligently working on the field to ensure it looks the best it can and is safe for players. Toma, 90, is working on the playing surface with a 30-man crew. </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-A-2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Legendary groundskeeper George Toma, who grew up in Edwardsville, poses in front of the NFL logo on Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, the site of Super Bowl LIII. The 90-year-old and his crew planned to work through the night to have the FieldTurf playing surface in the best condition possible for the title game. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TOMA-A-2.jpg</photo3><caption3>Legendary groundskeeper George Toma, who grew up in Edwardsville, poses in front of the NFL logo on Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, the site of Super Bowl LIII. The 90-year-old and his crew planned to work through the night to have the FieldTurf playing surface in the best condition possible for the title game. </caption3><photoCredit3></photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Edwardsville&#8217;s Toma working hard &#8212; &#8216;and then some&#8217; &#8212; on Super Bowl field</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Bill O&#8217;Boyle</p><p>boboyle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>Super Bowl LIII</strong></p><p><strong>Participants: </strong>New England Patriots (13-5) vs. Los Angeles Rams (15-3)</p><p><strong>Kickoff</strong>: 6:30 p.m.</p><p><strong>Network</strong>: CBS (The game will also be streamed for free on CBSSports.com or the CBS Sports app.)</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

53rd time’s a charm: Edwardsville native worked through night to prepare Super Bowl field