Deep in the bowels of Paul Brown Stadium, in what was - until a few days ago - Darian Daily's office, is a rake. There wasn't much special about that rake, other than who gave it to Daily and why.
The implement had been a college graduation gift in 1992 from Shelby Rye, Daily's high school baseball coach in Dickson, Tennessee. During his high school days in the mid-1980s, Daily helped Rye prep the baseball field at Dickson County High for play, and boasted of his dreams of one day playing center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Even then, Rye knew Daily had more talent for grooming a pitcher's mound than he did throwing from one. So, in 1992, when Daily graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in plant and soil science, there was Rye with a rake."He told me I was never going to play for the Dodgers and that I'd need that rake," Daily told TurfNet in 2013.
"I wanted to play center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But when you can't run, you can't throw and you can't hit, you need to find something else to do"
Daily, who had been the head groundskeeper for the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals since 2003, died Aug. 27 doing what he loved, helping paint lines on a local high school football field in preparation for the prep season. He was 47.
According to the Bengals, Daily experienced a "medical emergency" while helping paint the soccer field at Taylor High School in the Cincinnati suburb of Cleves.
Throughout Daily's career, that rake served as a reminder that the world was a bigger place than just his own little sphere.
"I still have that rake, and I look at it every day," he told TurfNet three years ago. "It reminds me of how life changes."
Indeed.
At the top of his profession in the NFL, Daily easily could have focused on his own job, but instead his career has been marked with service to others in and out of his profession.
Marcus Dean, the sports turf manager at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, about 90 miles south of Cincinnati, said he and Daily talked by phone or in person at Sport Turf Managers Association events about every other month. The pair had much in common. Both grew Bermudagrass - Daily on the Bengals' practice fields, and Dean on playing surfaces throughout the university, and they shared a common UBU Sports artificial turf system on their game fields.
Many of the grass selections that we have available now are based on his trials and some of the things he was doing."
"We're both in the transition zone trying to grow Bermudagrass," Dean said.
"Many of the grass selections that we have available now are based on his trials and some of the things he was doing."
Daily shared his knowledge with anyone who would listen.
"He was just a wonderful person," said Jim Brosnan, Ph.D., from the University of Tennessee. "A consummate professional who cared deeply for the sports turf industry and advancing the professional sports turf manager."
In the past few years, he had become involved in speaking at the New England STMA conference and for years had served on the STMA's Information Outreach Committee, and he hosted field day events at Paul Brown Stadium to benefit others in the industry. His social media accounts were laden with time-saving tips and leads on jobs for his colleagues, as well as retweets of their exploits, not just his own. He was known by the Twitter handle @WhoDeyTurf, a play on the Bengals' game day chant.
"More than anything, I felt like I worked next to him on daily basis because he was so active on social media," Dean said. "You could see what he was doing, and you always felt connected to him."
He also was intent on continuing his own education and professional development. Three years ago, after a TurfNet Webinar by Bob Oppold, Daily turned to the Sports Turf Research Center for guidance on managing the Bengals' warm-season turf practice fields.
"While Paul Brown Stadium has plastic grass, Darian maintained exceptional turf on the practice fields," Oppold said. "It was our joint goal to promote quick recovery following the practices and provide excellent turf coverage and footing over the entire season, but it was Darian who accomplished the goal year-in and year-out. I will miss him."
His impact will be felt, and missed, around the NFL for years to come.
"He pioneered the NFL Seminar for the groundskeepers and served on many association boards," said Pam Sherratt, sport turf specialist at Ohio State University and a friend to Daily for nearly two decades. "He was a great mentor to young people and wanted to do anything he could to advance the profession."
The Jacksonville Jaguars hung a sign in his memory during their Aug. 28 NFL exhibition game with Bengals.Like UK's Dean, Mike Goatley, Ph.D., of Virginia Tech also is a University of Kentucky graduate. And like Dean, Goatley first met Daily through the late A.J. Powell, Ph.D., who was a turfgrass legend at UK and throughout the state.
"A.J. told me the Bengals had a superstar sports fields manager I needed to meet whose only fault was he was a Tennessee (fan), but that we could overlook that," Goatley said. "Darian was a consummate professional and one of the nicest guys in the business too. Per the requests to serve from the presidents, he chaired STMA's Information Outreach Committee for many years (and) was still doing so this year. His organizational skills kept us on task. Although Darian managed fields at the highest level, he was a resource and friend to folks from any segment of our industry regardless of their position and/or education. He was everything one could ask for as a representative of this industry."
"He talked a lot with A.J.," Dean said. "Especially when the Bengals converted practice fields from bluegrass to Bermuda. Once you were one of Dr. Powell's guys, you were always one of his guys. And that was pretty cool."
Survivors include his wife, Carole; daughter, Peyton; son, William; mother Virginia; sisters Sherry Daily, Mendy Johnson and Martha Potter. He was preceded in death by his father, Ronald.
Many who met Daily on a professional level marveled at how their relationship with him developed into a valued friendship that transcended turf.
"He would visit me at Lassing Pointe or Boone Links," said Jerry Coldiron, CGCS, a former superintendent in Kentucky now working for Hector Turf in Deerfield Beach, Florida. "We would golf and talk turf, equipment, life and our families.
"I will remember him fondly for our mutual love of family first (and) the turf industry, each time UK and Tennessee played and, of course, the occasional tear when I hear 'Who Dey.' "
Sherratt met Daily 17 years ago when she first arrived in the United States and he was the head groundskeeper across town for the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer. Although they worked together often during Daily's years with the Crew and the Bengals, they were good friends, as well.
"When I came here from England in 1999, I drove across to the stadium to say, 'hi' " Sherratt said. "We were instant friends."
Despite Daily's accomplishments as a turfgrass professional, Sherratt says she will remember him most for his humor and personality.
"He used to say 'Hello, Love' in an English accent whenever he saw me," she said. "I'll miss him terribly."