For Dylan Hendricks, a 23-year old Raleigh native, his experience with the Durham Bulls just started with going to games with his family as a kid.
While watching the players and taking in all of the ballpark’s changes over the years, he was merely a fan enjoying the gameday experiences put together by the team’s extensive staff. It never crossed his mind that he’d one day have his own hand in the stadium’s operation, let alone be recognized by Minor League Baseball for his work.
And it didn’t take long for that unimagined reality to come. After joining the Bulls’ grounds crew as a college undergrad and moving into the head groundskeeper role this past year after three seasons, the MiLB announced Hendricks as the International League’s Head Groundskeeper of the Year for the 2024 season in November.
“It’s a great honor to receive an award just like this,” Hendricks said. “It’s very exciting to get this so early in my career.”
Said Hendricks, “There were a lot of obstacles this year with weather, staff wise, but the biggest thing that led me to this was just the astounding grounds crew that I have and the different coworkers that assisted me through the season.”
Although groundskeeping wasn’t in mind in Hendricks’ younger days, his hobbies set him on his way.
Growing up, Hendricks loved sports, playing soccer and baseball, and he also would mow lawns. In high school, his brother and a friend started an unofficial landscaping business where they would work on a few yards in the community for some extra money in the summer.
“It was something to do in the summer, and it’s a good learning curve to the real world,” Hendricks said.
When figuring out what to do in the real world as an undergrad at NC State, Hendricks decided to combine his affinities for sports and landscaping and pursue a degree in turfgrass science.
During Hendricks’ sophomore year, Joe Stumpo, the Durham Bulls Head Groundskeeper at the time, shared a presentation to the NC State Turf Club over Zoom and asked if anyone was interested in joining the Bulls’ groundskeeping staff. Hendricks got in contact with him and earned a part-time role with the groundskeeping crew that he kept for three seasons before his big promotion.
“May of 2023 is when I graduated,” Hendricks said. “I got the job in July of 2023. That season is really what helped me a lot because I was still on the grounds crew until July, and when I got the job, it was all kind of a weird transition here at the Bulls because we had one person move up, another person moved up, and I was able to move into the head groundskeeper position, so we’re all kind of assisting each other in the transition.”
Hendricks credits his current grounds crew, the experience he gained in the three years prior to the promotion and his time watching former head groundskeeper Cameron Brendle, who is now the Bulls’ Director of Operations and Grounds, for his early head groundskeeping success.
“I was able to kind of see how he does his job here, and I was able to take that and put that into my thoughts, and I kind of reflect how much I do around him,” Hendricks said about Brendle. “I learned a lot from him, and that’s kind of the reason I’m here today.”
For Hendricks, day-to-day duties as the head groundskeeper differ depending on if it’s preseason, a game day or an off week during the season. Preseason deals with a lot of on and off the field work, including planning schedules and purchasing items while off weeks during the season deals with aeration, top dressing fertilization and other cultural practices to the field.
Game days can be the busiest days with mowing the field, painting lines, doing dirt work to the infield and the mound, keeping moisture in the field, dragging the field and completing post game maintenance.
“It’s a long day,” Hendricks said.
Only a few years into the groundskeeping business, Hendricks feels it’s too early to know where his journey will take him, although he doesn’t envision himself leaving North Carolina. He’s not limiting himself to baseball for the rest of his career, though, as he feels the future depends on whatever opportunities are presented.
That way of thinking has worked for him before.
“It’s pretty cool,” Hendricks said. “I would’ve never imagined that I would be in the situation that I am today, especially being here as a fan.”
