RUTLAND – The Proctor High School boys’ and girls’ soccer coaches were shocked when they arrived on the first day of practice on what they thought was a new soccer field and found, instead, a turnip field. “I have nothing against bulbous taproots,” said girls’ coach Ida Kickem, “but they do make it difficult to move down field with the ball.”

The field was commissioned to replace Taranovich Field, which is currently unusable thanks to the current number of turnips growing in it. While school officials say the condition of both fields is all just a big misunderstanding, the contractor hired to build the new field says it was nothing of the sort.

“The school contracted me to build a field, but they did not specify what kind of field,” said Max Cavator, owner of the excavation-and-seed company that created the turnip field. “I decided this was my opportunity to express my artistic side.” The newly-fulfilled field-artist added, “Soccer fields are so boring, so flat and green. A good turnip field has furrows, hillocks, and, of course, lots of turnips. They add a nice touch of purple to Vermont’s mostly-green landscape, and they are the state vegetable.”

As good Vermonters, the Proctor Athletic Department is making due. Since the school now doesn’t have two soccer fields, its boys’ and girls’ teams will instead play the newly-created sport of rutabaga. “Rutabaga is a lot like rugby,” says Proctor Athletic Director Justin Case, “except that it is played with turnips on a turnip field.”