Becker Underwood may be an unfamiliar name to some students at Iowa State, but it is a name that is known and represented at sporting events around the globe.

Located in Ames, Becker Underwood supplies products to events from the Super Bowl and the Olympics to the World Cup and even the Augusta National golf course, home of the Masters.

They are known for a product called Green Lawnger, which is a color enhancer that makes dormant and discolored turf look green and healthy.

“We have been at the Super Bowl since ’91, and at the Olympics since Barcelona in ’92,” said Cozette Hadley, business manager in charge of horticulture and agriculture specialties. “Not many people actually know that the grass is painted. The average TV viewer thinks it just looks like that.”

Hadley said the company supplies the paint for most of the NFL teams who play on natural grass. The Jaguars, Bears, Broncos, Ravens and Dolphins are some of the teams.

Becker Underwood was established in 1982, when Jeff Becker and Roger Underwood teamed up to start the business.

Now the company has offices in Canada and the United Kingdom. Their 80,000 square foot plant is located at 801 Dayton Avenue.

In addition to their work in the sports field with Green Lawnger, Becker Underwood also does work in the fields of seed and landscape colorants, innoculants and bio-pesticides.

They continue to be a leader in colored landscape with a product called Mulch Magic, which transforms wood fiber and bark into different shades of color.

“We provide some great quality products, but it really is the distributor’s relationship with us and the customer that makes things work,” Hadley said. “They take the order, make the deliveries and make sure products get to the right place.”

Hadley displayed some photos and explained the process of getting the field ready for the Super Bowl.

She said the field is put together four to six weeks before the big game.

Sod is brought in and laid down and when the grass is ready, the green paint is applied as many as three times. Helicopters are sometimes brought into the stadium to dry the paint in case the field is behind schedule.

In golf, Becker Underwood has clients that include Pebble Beach and the Los Angeles Country Club in addition to Augusta. They sell them everything from Green Lawnger to the dye that give ponds their color.

“They are a company that is looked at with great respect with how they help turf managers out with colorants and dyes,” ISU turf manager Mike Andresen said.

Andresen uses Becker Underwood’s Green Lawnger product as well as their green colorant in his divot mix. He also uses their chelated iron, which helps make grass more healthy and gives it a dark green color.

Andresen called it “the best in the business.”

Andresen used Becker Underwood’s field paint for six years prior to this season.

“They make products that make us more precise and better turf managers,” Andresen said. “They get us out of the nuts and bolts and more into the finishing touches. They just make things a lot easier.”