By Craig Harris
The Arizona Republic

ELOY, Ariz. - As workers cut and rolled the lush sod that is destined for the Super Bowl in Houston, former landowner C.C. Willis marveled at how far his industry had come.

"When we started the sod business in the 1970s, there were all of two other sod growers in the state, and one used goats to mow the grass," Willis, a consultant with West Coast Turf, said Monday. "And at that time, you couldn't even give sod away."

For at least the last six months, West Coast Turf has groomed its mix of bluegrass and ryegrass, its "Super Bowl Sod," off an unpaved road seven miles from Interstate 10 in a valley couched between Picacho Peak and Sawtooth Mountain.

Monday's harvest marked the sixth time that the Palm Desert, Calif., company has provided sod for the National Football League's premier event, but this is the first time the grass is from one of its Arizona farms.

"I know this is out in the middle of nowhere," West Coast Turf co-owner John Foster said. "But this has been a farming area for many years."

The Eloy farm, which West Coast Turf bought from Willis three years ago, grows about 1,000 acres of sod, including its trademark BOBSod. BOBSod is used in the Bank One Ballpark, sometimes referred to as the "BOB," in Phoenix and sold to the public at retail home improvement stores.

The company grows about 60 million square feet of sod a year in Arizona. Sales have increased about 15 percent in the past two to three years.

Foster said the NFL was paying "six figures" for the turf.

Crews filled 35 refrigerated trucks with the sod to haul it to Reliant Stadium for Super Bowl XXXVIII, to be played Feb. 1.

The company, which also has operations in Scottsdale, has sodded fields for the NFL since 1992, when the company was asked to replace rain-damaged turf in San Francisco for a playoff game between the Cowboys and 49ers.

West Coast Turf is slated to provide sod for next year's game in Jacksonville, Fla., and possibly for the Super Bowl in Detroit in 2006.