The crew from Ag Design, Inc., take a break as they wait for a delivery of topsoil.

The young man in the cab of the orange Kubota KX 121-3 wasn’t seeking publicity and he wasn’t expecting it either. As he wheeled the unit and its float angle blade in concentric circles, turning the dirt on the baseball infield into a flat powdery surface, he seemed the kind of guy that quietly goes about his work and lets the results speak for itself.

So, in the spirit of no good deed should go unnoticed, I’ll tell the story for him and for the handful of volunteers that helped him.

Ryan Gregoire, a pleasant, agreeably handsome man has been running Agricultural Design, Inc., headquartered in tiny, rural Seville, OH since 1989. The name is somewhat misleading. His small company (six workers including himself) builds and renovates sports fields and also does work for golf courses and other grounds sites. He obviously enjoys working in dirt and in the elements, a work ethic he acquired on the family sod farm.

I sought out Ryan in late August and found him under a baking mid-afternoon sun at Bluffton University, in the tiny (pop. 3,946) Ohio town of the same name. The town and the university are located just off of busy I-75 in prairie-flat west central Ohio, beans and corn country.

Ryan Gregoire was pleased with the grade his crew established for the infield.

Because it figures prominently in this story, you should know more about I-75, a concrete ribbon extending from Sault Ste. Marie in northern Michigan to Miami, FL. This 1,786-mile (total length), mostly 4-lane artery is the main passageway for “snowbirds” and college spring breakers from Michigan and Ohio that annually seek escape from cold, overcast Midwestern skies for Florida sunshine.

For most of its length I-75 is a boring, mind-numbing drive. Set your cruise control to 75 mph (85 mph in Georgia) and wash along in a seemingly never-changing river of cars and 18-wheelers. That is, until you approach Atlanta. Then, for an hour or more (depending upon traffic) everything changes. Two lanes of highway multiply into four, then more as you approach the city. Vehicular traffic multiplies at approximately the same ratio.

In mid-afternoon a cameraman from a Toledo station shot a short interview with OSTMA President Kevin Vaughn.

It was here in the pre-dawn darkness of this past March 2 that the motor coach carrying the Bluffton University baseball team crashed into and flipped over a concrete barrier and fell 30 feet onto I-75 below. The driver, who had taken the wheel a short time before, had apparently mistaken an exit ramp for a lane of the freeway.

The baseball team (most players were sleeping at the time) was traveling to southwest Florida to play baseball during spring break

Six people died in the crash — four student athletes, the bus driver and his wife. A fifth team member, critically injured, died a week later. Baseball Coach James Grandey, then 29, and several dozen other young athletes suffered serious injuries and were admitted and/or treated at Atlanta-area hospitals.

Bluffton University and its 1,200 students were devastated. Students at this 108-year-old, liberal arts college, which is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA, take an oath of never cheating on their exams (which are non proctored) and report anybody that does. While the college takes its athletics seriously, the young men and women that participate in its programs do it for the love of sport. Academics and service remain the foundation of college life there.

As Ryan Gregoire and his small crew took a break after grading the infield of the university’s baseball field, we talked. He had a few minutes. A load of donated topsoil they were expecting was still to arrive.

I The OSTMA volunteers had to delay the field renovation by about a week due to flooding earlier in August. (Image courtesy OSTMA)

Surveying his work from the parking lot behind the first base dugout, and with the 65-hp tractor and its trailing Westendorf grade box at rest on the dirt on what was rapidly taking shape as a new infield, Ryan appeared pleased.

“This one is actually coming out perfect as far as the conical grade,” he said with just the hint of a grin — a true &frac half percent grade from the center of the infield in all directions.

He said he got involved after getting to know Bluffton Baseball Coach James Grandey the year before, through a mutual friend, Mike Williams of Southern Athletic Fields. Ryan said he heard about the accident while he and his wife were vacationing in Naples, FL. He said his heart sank as more details of the tragedy poured in.

“I had talked with Coach Grandey and I knew was a good person,” said Ryan.

That was enough for him to bring his crew, trucks and equipment to Bluffton and to spend days rebuilding the university baseball field and regrassing it with green, healthy Kentucky bluegrass sod— donated.

This is what OSTMA members saw when they began work on the field, a sad reminder of the tragedy. When the project is finished there will be new in-ground dugouts and a more permanent memorial to the accident victims. (Image courtesy OSTMA)

“If they give us two weeks, they’ll be on the field,” Ryan said on that cloudless August afternoon. “Once they mow it a couple of times, it will be ready to play.”

Ryan, his Ag Design team and the small group of Ohio Sports Turf Managers Association volunteers pulled together by OSTMA President Kevin Vaughn donated their knowledge and materials (and lots of sweat) to give the university a better baseball field, a field that has been dedicated to the memory of the student athletes that died in the crash of the team bus.

To get a complete picture of the improvements that have been made on Bluffton University Memorial Field, visit a special section the University's Web site here.

Read more from Ron: Bluffton baseball looks beyond tragedy; works toward great '08 season