Written by Alex Semadeni - Director - Sports Communications at Boise State University

Renae Hartl was in the middle of her second season serving concurrently as the athletic director and head softball coach for Luther College, a Division III program located in Decorah, Iowa, a town of just over 7,000 in the northeast part of the state.

It was December of 2016. As the softball coach, Hartl led the Norse to a 38-6 record and Division III regional appearance. As the athletic director of the only school in the American Rivers Conference whose football team played on a grass field, she was in the beginning stages of figuring out what installing a turf field would look like.

In between gearing up for what little downtime a person serving as an athletic director and softball coach can have, Hartl sat down to watch college football bowl games over the winter break. One of the games was the 2016 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, featuring a high-scoring shootout between Idaho and Colorado State.

"It must have been a great game because my football coach at the time was talking about the game the next morning," Hartl said. "I made a comment about how unique the field was while watching it on TV. We both loved it."

The conversation sparked an idea, an idea that began to take life in January. By that time, President Paula Carlson and the Luther Board of Regents had decided to switch to turf. After conversations continued, the pair pitched the idea of using the school's colors instead of a traditional green playing surface.  

"We were trying to make ourselves unique and distinct," Hartl said. "There are so many Division III football programs within three hours of us. We were trying to figure something out that would make us special. We wanted to stand out. If a young man was going to look at a lot of campuses, football fields and coaches, what were they going to remember the most? We wanted something to make us special, make us unique, make us distinct, and make us memorable. That was really our goal."

On Jan. 20, 2017, Hartl reached out to Boise State, asking to see if it was possible to secure a different shade of blue-colored turf color. Roughly a month later, Boise State gave permission to Luther, allowing the Norse to become the first Division III football field to do so.

With the legalities confirmed, Hartl and some staffers met with some of Luther's biggest donors. They were all excited with the unique idea, giving Hartl and co. their blessing to proceed with the vision. 

The announcement came shortly after, creating an unrivaled excitement around the local community.  

"Our fan base loved it," Hartl said. "Even our oldest fans loved it. There was really zero negativity from our fanbase."

The teams from the conference, however, weren't as thrilled.

"It was interesting to see the pushback of us having a blue field," Hartl said. "A lot of teams in our conference didn't want us to wear blue uniforms on our blue field. There were rumors going around that a lot of birds have died on our field, and this is not the case. There were complaints that our opponents were at a disadvantage watching film. We enjoyed the heated conversation and pushback during the transition."

In the present day, the field has become a symbol of campus identity. Alums come back to take pictures, and the field is a prominent part of each visit given not only to prospective student-athletes, but all campus tours.

"Boise State gets mentioned on every single tour that we give," Hartl said. "It's literally on the tour guide manual that Luther College obtained the licensing from Boise State to do this. Every family that goes on tour here hears that agreement that we came upon. And pretty much every alum that comes to campus will almost always go take their picture on the blue turf before they leave. That's pretty special."

Hartl, who is entering her 26th year as a softball coach and now serves as the senior woman administrator in the athletic department, looks back on the process of working with Boise State officials to bring a blue turf to northeast Iowa.

"Boise State was really easy to work with," she said. "It was a pleasant experience. It took some work, but it was totally worth it to have this really cool thing. Bringing blue turf to our campus is something that I'm really proud of during that era of Luther Athletics. I hope we can continue our relationship with Boise State in the coming decades. We love that it is one of our special things at Luther College in the northeast corner of Iowa."