USU grounds crew turns soccer turf into a canvas of Aggie pride
When fans walk into the Utah State University Chuck & Gloria Bell Soccer Field, their eyes don’t just land on the USU Soccer team — they’re drawn to the field itself. According to the students behind the field, it has become a showstopper, covered in intricate designs that have taken social media by storm. The field has become an unexpected show of Aggie pride, and the students behind it say it’s all fueled by love for both the craft and the campus.
USU students Nick Bouck and Spencer Maughan are part of the grounds crew responsible for maintaining USU’s athletic fields. The pair has been creating buzz online for their creative field designs, earning praise from students and fans alike.
“We started working here about two or three years ago,” Bouck said. “Spencer and I were good friends in high school, and I secretly loved doing cool patterns in my parents’ lawn, and I didn’t really know Spencer was kind of the same.”
Once they joined the USU grounds team, they discovered a shared passion and found mentors in Tanner Collins and Logan Huber, turf manager and specialist, who taught them how to maintain high-quality athletic turf. Before long, Bouck and Maughan began adding their own creative twist.
“We kind of just started saying, ‘Hey, we like the way the grass looks when we do this,’” Bouck said. “And we just kind of started having a little fun with it, mostly on the old soccer field and on the practice football field until this year. Logan gave us a whole lot of freedom to do kind of what we wanted with it.”
That fun has transformed the look of the field, but the pair are quick to point out what made it all possible.
“For the last 20 or so years, it was a natural field with a clay-based dirt underneath — basically just fill dirt from Lee’s Marketplace,” Maughan said. “We couldn’t maintain it the way that we wanted, which made it hard to be able to pattern.”
That all changed once the team’s recent success brought new attention and investment to the program.
“They won the Mountain West Conference and then this last year as well. And so that gave a lot of focus to the soccer team and a lot of the funding that they needed to be able to have the money for this build,” Bouck said.
Now with the new additions, they’re able to bring more creativity to the field. However, the process isn’t as simple as it looks. Designs can take two to six hours to mow, and the pair often work several days in a row before a game.
“Some patterns take four hours, others just a couple,” Maughan said. “If there’s a game on Thursday, mowing it from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so it’s looking really good. The longest one we’ve done took about six hours.”
The effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. Students, fans and even visiting teams have taken to social media to praise the crew’s work.
“We love getting the feedback from it,” Maughan said. “But we really do it because we love it and love making it look as good as possible.”
That pride carries over to their side project, an Instagram account called Absolute Lasers, where they share photos and time-lapse videos of their designs from campus and personal projects.
“Right now, it’s not a business — just an Instagram page that we post our fun patterns on and designs that we’re doing in our yards,” Bouck said.
Even when the soccer season ends, Bouck and Maughan don’t slow down. The grounds crew shifts focus to other sports, maintaining the softball fields through the spring and finding new ways to get creative.
“We always have ideas,” Bouck said. “We’re always sending each other ideas and drawing pictures in classes of different ideas that we can bounce off each other.”
That constant collaboration has earned them more than praise — it’s also helped them build strong relationships across Utah State Athletics.
“I think we’ve become pretty close friends with the coaches, with the players. I know we’ve had a lot of conversations with referees, just about what goes behind it.” Bouck said.
That collaboration and recognition have motivated the pair to keep improving.
“We visited BYU, Boise State, just a couple of other programs that have really nice fields, but to be completely honest, we feel like we do a lot better job than anyone else in our region,” Bouck said. “Not to throw any shade, but we have a deep care for it that a lot of people are just starting to see and don’t really appreciate. It’s super special.”
That pride, though, comes second to safety and performance.
“The biggest part is that it’s able to be safe for the players, and the playability is consistent throughout the entire soccer field. And since we’ve got that, it gave us a whole lot of time to be able to think about the patterns and really make it as good as we can,” Maughan said.
Both students said they’re grateful for the chance to contribute to something that represents the university so well.
“It’s been awesome to see people notice the details,” Maughan said. “We just love being a part of the Aggie community and helping it look its best.”