Bucket list item crossed off: Blue Turf

BOISE, Idaho — OK, so it wasn’t a big-time college football game. Chris Petersen wasn’t stalking the sidelines micro-managing every detail.

He’s doing that at Washington now.

It was more a short-sided youth soccer match by teams that could have been called the Pink Flowers and Orange Dragons.

I can finally cross the Blue Turf of Bronco Stadium off my bucket list of sports facilities to see, making a quick stop before UNLV met Boise State in basketball across the parking lot at Taco Bell Arena on Saturday night.

It’s one of the best things about my job, an opportunity to witness some of the more famous places college games have been played.

That, and all the sportswriter groupies.

I have to say that San Diego State football coach Rocky Long was begging a bit when he said the blue turf gives Boise State an unfair advantage over other Mountain West teams. I was more blinded by the Orange Dragons streaking up and down the field than anything to do with the playing surface.

The blue turf was installed in 1986. It was the first non-green playing surface (outside of painted end zones) in football history and remains the only one among Division I Football Bowl Subdivision schools.

It wasn’t like sipping a frappuccino at the base of the Great Wall of China during the Olympics, but it was still pretty cool.