Turf reversal

Nate Rivera and Kelly Rensel have traveled paths both parallel and perpendicular during their turf careers.

Rivera fell into the industry over time, knocking on neighborhood doors and asking who might need their lawn mowed or, during long Buffalo winters, their driveway shoveled. He learned about botany from his father, Tom, who managed a farm, then started working for landscape companies and Seneca Nation before landing at Nichols School, a prominent prep school. Only then did he really fall for grass. “It was one of the few things that just stuck with me,” he says.

Rensel, on the other hand, hated yardwork when he was a kid. He loved baseball, though. Like so many kids, he wanted to play professionally and realized rather early that he would need to find another path to the game. He studied sport management at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania — now PennWest Edinboro — and landed a stadium operations and grounds crew internship with the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, then a Single-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. That sparked him. “I remember waking up in my apartment after the first homestand,” he says. “I was just exhausted, dead tired, and I absolutely loved it.”

They met years later, when the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons hired Rensel to tend to their field, and they still work together today — in a different part of the industry and in different roles: Rivera is the director of building and grounds for Hamburg, New York, about 15 miles south Buffalo, and Rensel is the head greenkeeper at 18 Mile Creek Golf Course, which is part of the vast tract of turf Rivera manages.

Let’s let them tell the story.

NATE: I was working at Nichols when I reached out to Chad Laurie of the Buffalo Bisons to ask if I could tour his facility and see how they did it at the professional level. He invited me over and he came to the campus. He gave me an overview to rebuilding a mound. When he went to the Buffalo Bills, his assistant, Danny Keene, took over and offered me a position. I did a year on his crew and went up to assistant. That’s when Kelly came into the picture KELLY: My turf background is the absolute School of Hard Knocks. I’ve learned by messing up and learning from mistakes, meeting some really good people along the way who have helped me out. I’ve gotten to pick their brains a bunch and ask a lot of questions about how to do things and what to do. That all prepared me for a move to Buffalo and Triple-A.

NATE: From the moment I met Kelly, I felt like we hit it off pretty good. I figured this guy was good to work with. Kelly gave me full autonomy over the field. It grew my confidence in everything I was doing, and the payoff was we won field of the year that year.

KELLY: When I met Nate, I told him, I need you. I need you to show me the ropes, I need you to show me where things are in the stadium, all the little intricate things that I need to know, and I need you to handle some stuff while I deal with the Blue Jays — (early during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Toronto Blue Jays were unable to play home games in Canada and moved their operations to Buffalo) — the field renovation, Major League Baseball stuff. Everything I heard about you is great and I need you to take some things off my plate and run with it. And he did. He did great.

NATE: I would go into his office and ask, What’s the plan today? and he would tell me, You know what to do. Just go do it. I would gather up the guys, we would get everything going. Kelly was doing his admin stuff and would be out there by the start of BP, checking on things. Everything was squared away and ready to go.

KELLY: It was about a week or two in when I knew he wasn’t just an assistant. Seeing him run the equipment, how he was leading the guys, I dumped more and more on him, let him run the gameday crew so I could do some bigger projects. I trusted him to go and just do his thing.

The Bisons worked with a surprisingly low number of full-time grounds crew members — at the time, they were one of just two Triple-A teams without a full-time assistant — and after the season Nate moved to Tri-County Country Club in nearby Forestville to work with superintendent Peter Gilray. Then Florida came calling: He received a job offer with Hillsborough County to run 84 of the 162 municipal parks in and around Tampa. He headed south but he never stopped talking with Kelly.

NATE: Even when I moved to Florida, I was working on Bermudagrass down there and that was a whole different animal, and I was picking Kelly’s brain about upkeep, different growing seasons. I would call him probably once a week. He was always responsive. Just because we weren’t working at the ballpark together didn’t mean we weren’t talking. He’s always been an asset for me, helping me grow my knowledge in turf.

Nate loved his work, but the Riveras and Florida weren’t a match: Family pulled them back to New York after less than a year down south. Nate weighed his options. He could return to Tri-County Country Club, maybe entertain another run with the Bisons — but he wanted to stick with parks.

NATE: We moved in the beginning of March and it’s kind of like we never left. All of our family is here, so it felt good to say, Let’s go to so-and-so’s house for dinner. The first thing I had to figure out was the golf course superintendent position. Because my shop is union, the current superintendent needed to be approved by Erie County Civil Service, and he was turned down. The town supervisor and I went back and forth on what we would do. We put a public post out and I reached out to Kelly. I told him about the opportunity and he said he was interested.

KELLY: At first, I was definitely struggling with the idea of going to golf. All I knew was baseball. I always knew there would be some kind of afterlife if I did move on from baseball, but I didn’t know what it would look like or when it would be. Once Nate floated that idea to me, OK, it’s interesting, I’ll open that door a little bit. I definitely had a lot of trepidation. But in the end, it’s a very similar job. Two weeks ago, we were aerating greens with the same 648 aerator and the same topdresser I used at the stadium. It’s the same process, it’s just in a completely different location with a lot more acres to deal with.

NATE: Bringing Kelly into the group, some people said, He’s baseball. What does he know about golf? I hate say this but grass is grass. You’re doing the same thing on a baseball field that you’re doing on a golf course, you just have to plan and schedule differently. You don’t have a week when the team is away and you can do your cultural work. You have to shut down half the course and do it.

KELLY: I started July 18 and I went from a fishbowl to an ocean. I was downtown next to Buffalo’s tallest building, next to the 190 on-ramp, with all the front office windows looking down on the field. Here, I can get lost and no one would know where I am.

NATE: Kelly handles the day in and day out on 18 Mile Creek. He has his own budget, so if he ever needs anything from me, he lets me know. I’m just oversight. I’m very hands off. I deal with the projects that come up and that’s about it. Kelly and his two assistants, Jimmy Brand and Scott Vuich, and their seasonal staff handle everything.

KELLY: He’s my Dad when I need money.

NATE: Essentially, yeah.

KELLY: The equipment and the hands-on work has been easy. What was difficult was the hours. Getting up at 5 a.m. was a little different for me, but it’s nicer getting out at 2 p.m. and having a little better work-life balance. I get to spend more time with my wife, I get eight hours of sleep, I’m not going home and going to bed already stressed out. I can go home and decompress for a while.

NATE: After the board approved Kelly, we were standing outside and I turned to his wife and asked her, Are you ready to have your husband back? And she just laughed.

KELLY: You need to prioritize. I go in, I do my work, and then I leave. I’ve learned a lot better already with this job to completely shut off that part of my brain. I’m not just on the go, go, go, go, go.

NATE: Baseball, you have lights and can work on your field after dark. You work around the game. Golf, the sun goes down, you’re either using a light on your mower or tractor, or you’re off the course.

KELLY: It’s a role reversal. I know how he communicates, I know how he leads — and I know he has a million things on his plate, so I don’t bug him too much unless it’s a pressing need. It’s great to work for somebody I’ve already worked with. We have that rapport and things are just kind of easy. If we do need to have a hard conversation, it’s not really going to be a hard conversation. It’s just going to be two guys talking and working things out.

NATE: Working for the government, for a municipality, you have to account for everything, so for me to have a turf management background is very beneficial for Kel. Because I can go in front of the board and tell them, This is what he’s doing and this is why he’s doing it. I let him do what he needs to do, and if he needs anything from me, he knows he can always call me.

Kelly’s always been a big supporter of me, helping me better myself. For me to help him like this, I finally feel like I’m paying him back. To be able to help his work-life balance, to help him stay in an area where he moved to for family, it’s a payoff for all the support he’s given to me to build my confidence. Moving forward, we’re just going to continue to work well together, like we have since Day 1, support each other as best we can, and just keep kicking ass.

KELLY: You’re bringing a tear to my eye, Nate. You’re such a nice guy.

Nate Rivera is the director of building and grounds for Hamburg, New York. This is his first Turfheads Take Over contribution.

Kelly Rensel is the head greenkeeper at 18 Mile Creek Golf Course in Hamburg. This is his second Turfheads Take Over contribution.