Baseball season may be over but it never is for this Middleton, Wisconsin based company.

Beacon Athletics, formerly known as Beacon Ballfields , has been in business since 1948. They are a catalog supply company that sells equipment and materials to athletic field managers to help get their fields ready. While their primary focus is baseball and softball fields, they do sell soccer and football supplies.

I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Zwaska one day and asked him about Beacon. After a short talk, we set up a meeting to find out more about the company. Paul is a Madison , Wisconsin native and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Soil Science from the University of Wisconsin with an emphasis on turf management.

He spent 16 years in Major League Baseball with the Baltimore Orioles, 6 years as an assistant groundskeeper and 10 years as the head groundskeeper. He had the opportunity to help design and build Oriole Park at Camden Yards, simply known as Camden Yards. He worked on the earlier park, Memorial Stadium, before they moved to their new facility in 1992. To this day, he says he was lucky to have gotten his dream job so early.

He emphasized that people don't realize what goes on behind the scenes. This is not a "banker's hours" job. During the season, he would be at the ballpark every day, 16 hours a day. Even when the Orioles were on the road, he had to be there to make sure all was going well.

Paul's position at Beacon is technical support and troubleshooting for their customers. Their client base includes almost all of Major League Baseball from San Diego to Boston and everything in between. The following is a testimonial from one of their customers:

The Beacon Staff has great experience with ball fields at all levels - from little leagues to the big leagues. Since we began working with them in 2001, Beacon has been extremely helpful with both their products and their expertise and support. I'd recommend Beacon to anyone in our industry.

Doug Gallant
Head Groundskeeper
Cincinnati Reds

It's not only the major leagues who are giving them high fives. The following is a testimonial from a town of 2,000 in southwestern Wisconsin :

With technical advice from Beacon Athlietcs we constructed a state-of-the-art baseball & softball complex from the ground up. Not only did they map out every step of the process, their catalog had all of the field products we needed to complete the project. We couldn't have done it without Beacon.

Tim Osterday
Sieg Field Project Coordinator
The Sieg Foundation, Darlington , WI

It's interesting how things can turn out for some. When Paul was in college, his soil science professor, Dr. Jim Love, told him he would be teaching field management some day and Paul said never. His second "calling" came at one of the most unexpected times after returning to Wisconsin for his job at Beacon.

His son was going to play little league at a field in Madison and when they showed up, he couldn't believe the condition of the facilities. Built in the 1960s, the people hadn't done enough to keep things to a good playing level and many other things were dilapitated. His next step was talking to some parents and finding out how to get the facility to a better condition. After writing up a proposal, he went before the neighborhood board and was turned down. He drew up another proposal and they accepted it.

He knew how much he missed being on the playing field and before he knew it, he found out how much he enjoyed teaching the art of maintaining a ball field with his work at his son's little league park. Beacon takes as much satisfaction in helping small towns keep their fields up to par as they would the major leagues. Their goal is to make every little league stadium and everything in between as good as the big leagues since he knows not every child will make it to the top.

Beacon teaches field maintenance through seminars and will base the seminar on the season and region of the country. Joining Paul is Steve Wightman who has over 30 years of sports field management. Steve managed the field at Mile High Stadium in Denver , Colorado for 13 years and has worked at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego , California for the last 15 years. They have a number of books, DVDs and video for sale through their catalog.

Their business has grown by leaps and bounds the last 10 years. They have revolutionized the chalkers used on the field through a lot of trial and error. They continually work with their vendors and engineers to make sure they offer the best product available in the market.

Steve Myrland has joined Beacon as their consultant in design and development of performance products unique to Beacon. Steve has worked with the University of Wisconsin hockey team and the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League as director of conditioning.

The next time you go to the ballpark and look around, remember that there are people not only at the ballpark who are working hard to make sure you, the fan, and the athletes are having a good experience. There are many others behind the scenes you will never see that care about making sure your experience is one to remember. Everyone should be able to have their "Field of Dreams" and at Beacon, they will work hard to make sure you are able to play on that exact type of field.

For more information on Beacon Athletics, you can visit them at:

www.beaconathletics.com