Ever wonder how the UConn athletic fields get into immaculate shape? Meet the man behind the hashmarks

Steve Muhlberg walked 20 miles last Wednesday at work. Most of it occurred within the dimensions of two football fields.

Muhlberg, the assistant athletic field manager at UConn, was busy getting the practice football fields ready for new coach Jim Mora and UConn’s first practice on Friday.

He and two other workers spent all week working on the grass fields, measuring out where the lines should be, painting lines and hashmarks, and stenciling the yard line numbers, among other tasks.

Some of the lines were already there but were faded. Others were new because Mora wanted the fields to resemble Rentschler Field as much as possible.

“We looked at a big blown-up picture of Rentschler and we were trying to replicate it,” Muhlberg said.

“There was only pretty much the shell of the field, sidelines, end lines and five-yard lines, but no hashmarks, no numbers, no color. We’ve never done this amount of detail up here before. There was a lot of measuring.”

The 20 miles? That was one day of painting lines.

“We get our steps in, doing this,” he said.

Muhlberg, a 2010 UConn graduate who majored in turf grass management and soil science, has been working on the campus athletic fields for 10 years. Because many of the fields have artificial turf now, he doesn’t have to maintain them the same way he does with the practice football fields.

Last week, he worked 9-10 hours a day just to get the football fields done.

“It’s just really time-consuming because I have to measure everything,” he said. “It’s the initial start is what takes a while, you’re laying things out. Then I get nervous sometimes - I had students moving all the stencils [Wednesday] and I was making sure the numbers weren’t going the wrong way.

“I tell the students, if you see me messing up, say something.”

He drove a scissor lift truck to the field Thursday to take an aerial shot and make sure everything looked good for Friday.

Muhlberg, who grew up in East Hampton, remembered going to UConn football and soccer games as a kid. He was working on the grounds crew at TPC River Highlands and going to Central Connecticut, when he realized this was the work he wanted to do, so he transferred to UConn.

“I worked at the TPC for four years then I went to Madison Country Club as an assistant superintendent and then this job opened up,” he said.

Muhlberg, sometimes accompanied by his dog Blaze, a 9-year-old golden retriever, can be found working on various fields at UConn, depending on what time of year it is. After the football fields were done, he was planning to head over and re-string nets at the soccer stadium because women’s soccer opened practice Tuesday. He had to freshen up the lines on the field hockey team’s artificial turf field because that team starts practicing Aug. 10.

“Once we’re done with one task or one sport, we bounce right to the other one,” he said. “Everybody’s gearing up for fall. Everyone plays in the fall. Fall is busy.”

Of course, he will have to touch up the painting for the lines and numbers on the football fields every week, as well as replace divots torn up by players’ cleats - and mow the grass three times a week. The fields get watered at night. In the fall, when the football team practices in the morning, he has to get over there early to dry the dew off the field with a blower.

“When we had grass fields [for the other sports] back in the day, we had to stay for soccer games, we’d be here sometimes from 8 in the morning to 10 at night,” he said. “We don’t have to do that anymore with the synthetic fields.”

In the winter, he’s busy with snow removal off the turf fields for the teams that need to practice or play.

“Usually, we shut down around Thanksgiving and we kind of gear back up in early January,” he said. “Lacrosse is late January or early February. We do plowing, maintenance and small projects [in the winter].

“I really do enjoy what I do. It’s long days and a lot of work and I walk a lot. I love it.”

Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.