Wonder women: Women in Golf 2020

Sun Roesslein

Sports stadium manager
North Area Athletic Complex, Arvada, Colo.

Sun Roesslein is a sports stadium manager with Jeffco Public Schools in Colorado. She manages North Area Athletic Complex in Arvada, Colo., a 14-acre football and soccer complex.

She discovered the Bayer Women in Golf event through social media. Kelly Lynch, regional manager for Pure Seed, whom Roesslein had met through the Sports Turf Managers Association, encouraged her to apply even though she doesn’t work in golf.

Lynch told her, “We need all the women in the turf industry that we can get.”

Roesslein says there’s many challenges to her job, including co-managing the day-to-day field operations of the complex with colleague Christi Clay. They’re both responsible for staffing ticket booths, managing other staff members at events and helping out officials and athletic trainers for any game or outside event as needed.

The complex is also the home field for six local high school football teams and in a typical year would host at least 30 to 35 home games in a 10-week season and playoffs. This year is a shortened six-week season, but Roesslein says she’s happy the complex gets to mark its 20th anniversary with games.

“It’s not exactly how we wanted to celebrate,” she says. “We’re certainly glad to have the chance to show off what we’ve managed to accomplish in 20 years and give the kids a chance to play.”

Another challenge, Roesslein says, is the general misconception that many coaches who play at their field for the first time often ask, “I’d like to talk to the guy in charge.”

To which she replies, “Yeah, you’re talking to her.”

She says it’s also unusual to have two females in charge of an athletic complex, but she works well with Clay.

Roesslein says she’s noticed more young women at conferences and says the experience at Women in Golf was a great way to connect with other women in turfgrass. A highlight was the scheduled hourlong happy hour that, for many attendees, continued for three hours or more.

“(Bayer) did a fantastic job this year with the challenges that they were faced with and turning it into a very worthwhile event,” she says. “I would not have had the ability to connect with so many people within the golf course industry and vendors; that was pretty cool. Clearly, they’re doing something right if something they had slated to be an hour turns into three hours.”

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