Washburne Stadium

The soccer field at Westcott Field, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. It was rebuilt in 2006 on a sealed EPIC subsurface system in time for that autumn's games. The field sits inside the Morrison-Bell running track, and the whole plant is two 12-volt sump pumps and an irrigation controller. The stadium was rebuilt and reopened in 2022; according to J.W. Davis, the 2006 subsurface system was carried through that work unaltered.

Hemmed in by the track, the old surface was hard to drain and hard to keep good enough to host home playoff matches. In 2006 the new soccer coach asked for help with the surface. J.W. Davis, a former SMU letterman who had backed the soccer programme and sat on the hiring committee, went looking for a technology that would fix the drainage problem rather than just manage it.

A geomembrane liner went down over the prepared subgrade. EPIC chambers and pipework were laid on the liner, followed by gravel, the sand profile and rolled sod. The grass draws moisture from below by capillary action, and what the plants take up, not a timer, sets how much water leaves the sand. When it rains the flow reverses: water moves down into the chambers and overflows to storage and the city storm system. There are no sprinklers or overhead spray.

The site has no water meter or control plot. Its record is photographic, checked against weather station data. On 13 January 2007, in the middle of a four-inch rain, the field was photographed playable. On 29 August 2026 it showed full, dense, even cover. That followed 29 days of August with no measurable rain at Dallas Love Field and a summer peak of 109°F on 22 July. Unwatered ground nearby showed bare soil and cracked clay.