The grass is greener at home: Carson Valley woman's journey to become the only female head groundskeeper in minor league baseball

The Grass is Always Greener: Leah Withrow and Her Journey to Becoming the Only Female Head Groundskeeper in Minor League Baseball

By Arianna Schmidt

Women in the sports industry are far and inbetween, including those who go pro in their respective sports, those who manage these sports, and in Leah Withrow’s case, those who look after an entire baseball field and its upkeep.

In 2020, Withrow became the only female Head Groundskeeper in Minor League Baseball, being promoted to the position for the Reno Aces, a Triple-A affiliate team of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Withrow is also making history as the first woman ever to lead the grounds crew for the Reno Aces baseball team.

According to Withrow in an earlier Reno Aces press release, there’s about a 2.6 percent chance of seeing a woman in a head groundskeeper position, even in Major League Baseball. Currently, only four women hold this spot in the MLB.

The chance of finding a female staff member in the stadium as opposed to a male, about 40 percent, Withrow said.

“It is crazy to think you can walk around a stadium looking for a seat and find a male staff member before a female,” Withrow said in the press release. “The importance of women stepping up in sports is huge and they shouldn’t shy away from it.”

Withrow took a leap of faith in college that led her down a path of no return. She stepped up to the plate in an industry where women were limited, but willing and able nonetheless.

Hailing from Gardnerville, Nevada, Withrow graduated from Douglas High School in 2014. When applying for college, Withrow said out-of-state options really appealed to her, being that she lived in a town of 5,000 people all her life. She was ready for a change.

“I was just trying to get out of Nevada,” Withrow said. “Especially Gardnerville, the same people you graduated kindergarten with, you graduate high school with. I’ve never known anything different and I knew there was something else out there that I wanted to try and do and see and meet new people.”

A high school career aptitude test her junior year directed her towards a strength in engineering, Withrow said, and she toured North Dakota State University thinking that was the path she was headed down.

“I like the mechanical side of (engineering) and working with your hands, so I was really looking into engineering,” Withrow said. “Then I took calculus my senior year of high school and I was like, eh, nope, I can’t do four more years of this.”

Luckily, while visiting NDSU, Withrow came across the turfgrass management major, which instantly sparked her interest.

“I was like, that’s really interesting and odd,” Withrow said. “I like sports, I like to be outside, it’s very hands-on. I think this is something I could be very interested in.”

While intrigued by the major, Withrow still began exploring options other than engineering, she said. Then, the head of the engineering department introduced her to turfgrass management.

“Everything he said was just hitting me, like this is actually something I could really dive deep into,” Withrow said. “It’s very biology-based, which was my strong science. All of these things were playing to my strengths, and I thought this was something I could be good at. I took a leap of faith after my senior year of failed calculus, and decided to go with growing grass.”

So, for the next four years, learning to grow grass was exactly what she set out to do. The same head of the department that directed Withrow to the major also signed her up for a junior-level turf-crop management class.

“He wanted me to see what it was all about and not take a ton of generals and actually get interested in my major,” Withrow said, “which was the thing that saved me because I was so homesick in North Dakota, but I loved going to that class.”

For the class’s lab, students were out in the field physically mowing, fertilizing and aerating land. As an 18-year-old freshman, Withrow said this course sealed her fate at NDSU and she never looked back.

“It was pretty much a done deal after that semester,” Withrow said. “I was staying and finishing it through and doing all the internships, and trying to find a job out of college in turf.”

Upon her graduation in 2018, Withrow began utilizing her degree in Sports Turfgrass Management back home in Nevada. She became a full-time Assistant of Field Operations in 2019 for the Reno Aces right out of college before her promotion the next year.

Looking back, Withrow said she never considered the hard work and labor that goes into keeping the grounds of the downtown stadium so pristine. Even as a teenager, going to the Aces ballpark was strictly for watching baseball, not admiring the grass.

“When you walk through the gates and you see a field, you take in the stadium and the whole environment in and of itself,” Withrow said. “It’s better than what you see walking through your neighborhood every day, but you don’t ever think twice about how it got to that point, and certainly as a 15-year-old kid I never even thought twice about it.”

According to Withrow, she’s come to know turf management as a very biology-based system. For the upcoming baseball season, Withrow is in the middle of putting together an entire fertility program for implementation this spring prior to opening day.

“There’s a full science behind the grass side of this that a lot of people don’t understand,” Withrow said. “At this field and at this job, taking care of a field this caliber isn’t just mowing the grass and raking the dirt.”

According to Withrow, figuring out how much nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron, and magnesium to spray is a huge part of a healthy field. These elements, among others, ensure the grass is fully fed.

“All of my classes I took at NDSU have come into effect now, full-head on because the science behind the grass is what makes the field as pretty as it is, it’s not just mowing a pretty pattern,” Withrow said. “It’s getting the grass to survive the heat this summer and all of the events and a 10-day homestand. The science behind the field is just as important as the presentation.”

Looking forward to a freshly manicured lawn and long-awaited baseball season, Withrow said she’s most excited for her friends, family, and spectators alike to see what she’s been working on all spring.

“My favorite thing in the world is prepping the fields, getting the lines chalked, watering the infield, having everything set right before the National Anthem gets sung,” Withrow said. “You get to take a step back and you take a deep breath, and you're like, all of the work I’ve put in up to this point, I’ve been at the ballpark since 9 am. I’ve mowed, I’ve tamped, I’ve raked, I’ve done everything and now it’s ready for the game.”

Withrow said walking into Greater Nevada Field every day for work brings back the same feeling she had when she walked in as a high school kid: a baseball stadium is truly as grandiose as it makes spectators feel.

“I still walk in this ballpark and have to remember that every time that I see a kid on the berm or in the seats looking for a ball,” Withrow said. “I was that kid and that local talent is just as good as any other.”

With that being said, local talent can account for anyone, male or female. According to Withrow, women in athletics is important because it’s beneficial to young people to see a wide variety of people working on and off the field.

“It’s a huge ‘representation matters’ thing, that you don’t know it’s a possibility until you see it be a possibility,” Withrow said. “I think that’s going to be huge in the next few years as women start to take over front offices and women start running a lot of the department and things like that, it’s going to change the evenness, the 50/50 male to female in each team.”

The Reno Aces are back this season with Opening Day on Thursday, May 13 against the Las Vegas Aviators. Individual tickets go on sale today, click here for more information.