Employment: One-Man Crew Keeps Medfield's Fields In Shape

BY JOSH PERRY

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It was a typical summer day at Medfield’s McCarthy Park. The sun was shining, the weather was nice and warm, and in the background could be heard groups of youth lacrosse players working through drills and cheering goals. Off in the distance, there were kids playing on the Little League field taking grounders and a couple walking their dog down the path that leads from Hospital Road.

Standing in the shed at the edge of the parking lot was Brian Schools, who for the past five years has been working for the Medfield Park and Recreation Department as the one-man crew (with the exception of three part-time college students for a couple of months in the summer) that keeps these fields maintained and ready for use by the town. 

“We started with a small container (Mobile-Mini) and one mower,” said Schools while looking out on the fields and watching the lax camps. “It started with a push mower and I was doing 30 acres of recreation fields and 12 town properties.”

The department continues to grow each year with the purchase of new mowers, a groomer, an aerator, and the equipment shed that Schools helped build in 2013 with help from a few guys from the Highway Department. He laughed, “I came in on weekends and put up the walls…there’s 4,500 nuts and bolts in this thing.”

Schools played baseball at St. Jospeh’s College in Maine and he developed a love for field maintenance that saw him working 100-plus hours a week in his first job with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in Manchester. 

When he heard there was an opening in Medfield, he quickly applied, met with then director Jim Snyder, and started working to build the town’s fields (three multi-use, four Little League and two men’s softball league fields at McCarthy Park and a large multi-use field at Metacomet) to his exacting standards. 

“When I got here the fields were in pretty good shape,” said Schools, who noted that a local landscaping company had been taking care of the properties prior to his arrival. 

“I’ve done quite a bit of work and they’ve gotten gradually better with the practices that I’ve implemented. They’re slowly getting there. There’s always room for growth.”

Having a full-time employee to maintain the fields has been a boost for the department. Now, if there is an issue, youth leagues have only one person to try and get in touch with and director Kevin Ryder can call on Schools for special projects such as fixing an umbrella at Hinkley Pond or building a stockade fence to keep people from tipping over port-a-potties at the fields. 

“It wasn’t as on demand as it is now,” Schools explained. “Kevin will call me and I’ll be cutting grass and he’ll say something happened at the pond and I’ll get off the mower and head over. And he always gets updates - I come in after work and tell him what’s going on.”

“I don’t know a lot of other towns that are run like that, most of them are run by DPW. It’s good because there’s only one person for people to go to.”

Looking out over the expanse of green, it is easy to forget the way things looked at the end of March with snow mounds everywhere and unplayable, muddy fields. Schools admits it was not an ideal spring, but he complimented the youth leagues for being willing to work with him and not rush back into playing.

He said, “They listened for the most part. When they listen, their fields are better off.”

Even with the acres of fields in town that he cares for on a daily basis, Schools is hopeful that his job will continue to expand and that Park and Rec will get to use some of the State Hospital property. He remarked, “I’m just looking for growth.”

“I’ve developed fields that are in pretty good shape and I’d just love to have more up at the hospital. It makes sense, it’s nice and flat up there in areas and it’s all part of one complex.”

Even in the heat of the summer, Schools is not complaining about the work. How can he, Schools adds, getting to work outside everyday and doing a job that he loves.

“It’s been awesome,” he remarked, “because I get to do what I love here, which is take care of athletic fields, but at the same time help out with the recreation side.”

Schools heads back into the shed where he is joined by two of his college employees. The next project begins to keep Medfield’s park looking great.