George P Toma was born on February 2,1929 and is an American groundskeeper who specializes in working on sports facilities.
16 Facts About George Toma
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George Toma eventually worked his way up to head groundskeeper.
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George Toma reportedly took the Kansas City job because the field was in worse shape than Denver.
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George Toma has maintained the fields at numerous stadiums used by Major League Baseball and National Football League teams.
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For much of his career, George Toma was the head groundskeeper for the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Missouri; which includes the Kansas City Royals' Kauffman Stadium, and the Kansas City Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium.
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George Toma worked for the then-Kansas City Athletics until the team relocated to Oakland in 1968, and then for the expansion Royals, at Municipal Stadium, where the NFL Kansas City Chiefs played.
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George Toma's crews maintained the two carpets so well that they remained in use for two decades, far longer than is normally the case for artificial turf.
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In 2012, George Toma was inducted into the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame.
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George Toma was contracted by the NFL to prepare the field for every Super Bowl from 1967 to 2023.
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George Toma's reputation won him the job of preparing the field for the first Super Bowl in 1967, as team owners from both the NFL and the American Football League contracted with him to head the grounds crew at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
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George Toma was given free rein by then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to decorate the field however he chose.
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Some Eagles fans questioned George Toma's potential motives, as he is a Chiefs employee and fan of the team.
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George Toma was called upon to supervise the grounds crews during the 1984 and 1996 Olympic Games, and the 1994 World Cup.
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George Toma continues to work as a consultant for sports facilities and their groundskeepers around the United States.
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George Toma was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001 as the recipient of the Ralph Hay Pioneer Award.
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George Toma was inducted into the Major League Baseball Groundskeepers Hall of Fame on January 8,2012, as one of its charter members.