By the mid-1990s, Kidwell was working mainly in sports. He sodded football fields, turned diamonds into soccer pitches and created a natural synthetic grass, Dura-sport, that resists tearing.
"He's one of the guys in the industry," says Don Follett, the Ravens' head groundskeeper. "Sign a contract with Jack, and he gives you more than what you agreed on."
Kidwell laid sod for the Washington Redskins for 30 years. He has fond memories of coaches George Allen and Joe Gibbs. But Allen wasn't above sticking it to opponents.
Duraturf had helped install a field at RFK Stadium from which water could be sucked with pumps. During a game when the speedy St. Louis Cardinals were in town there was a driving rainstorm, leaving the field practically underwater at halftime.
Kidwell asked a stadium worker why the field was still so wet. "George told us to turn the pumps off," the worker said. It bogged the Cardinals down, and the Redskins won.
"Great guy," Kidwell says.
The company resodded Lambeau Field for the Green Bay Packers' NFC championship game in 1997. The Carolina Panthers, Washington Nationals, D.C. United and the Ravens became regular customers.
The company does the Ravens' practice fields in Owings Mills, and Bank of America Stadium, the Panthers' home field in Charlotte, N.C., boasts a Durasport surface.
"I'm partial to a lot of teams," Kidwell says with a laugh. "The ones I work for."
It's a rare thing, he says, to lay natural turf on the artificial stuff, if only because it's pricey for a one-time job. The crew must put a layer of plastic on the artificial turf to protect it from dirt and moisture. Once the game is over, they'll haul all 80,000 square feet of sod back to Richmond, where they'll replant it for future use.
But when it comes to laying sod, the M&T Bank Stadium job is like most others. As the crew proceeds, he does a soft-spoken play-by-play.
First, he says, you decide exactly where you want your first sideline. You lay the pieces end-to-end along that sideline, keeping the edge straight, tamping each in with a mud rake as you go. Once that row is in place, you pin each of its panels to the ground. That way, as you lay in more rows, there's an anchor to press them against.
"A tight fit is everything," he says.
On average, Kidwell's crewmen have been with Duraturf, a 20-employee firm, for more than 20 years, and it shows. A tank-like conveyance called a "lay machine" unspools the 42-inch-wide rolls. Crewmen follow, raking and tamping. Row by row, the field fills in.
If it rains, "we keep going," Patillo says. A soccer pitch - thick, green, all but seamless - will be in place by Sunday night.
On Friday, some of the world's best players will take that field before 70,000 fans, a soccer atmosphere unlike any M&T Bank Stadium has ever seen.
Is Kidwell worried? He doesn't look it. "You'll have a good field," he says.
He doesn't sound like he's bragging.
