Taking the time..The Loss of a True Leader

This forum has been used to update members on initiatives at Hyde Park, this post is a little different.....Darian Daily the Head Sports Field Manager for the Cincinnati Bengals passed away suddenly on August 27th. I know very few details, but what I do know is that Darian was a great father, husband and a leader in our Industry and he even left his mark at Hyde Park.

Darian

Our paths crossed about 7 years ago when I gave Darian a call to talk about painting a logo for the HP members for The Founders Cup. Darian was great, no questions asked he spent about 40 minutes running through how it could be done. Unfortunately, it still seemed complicated (golf course superintendents are not sports field managers) so he said he would come out and give me the visual guidance. He then took time out of his busy schedule the following Saturday to show me how to paint! Darian always took time the time, whether it was talking on the phone how great we had it with managing warm season grasses when it was 1000 degrees out, or engaging with turfgrass interns, or the many seminars he spoke at. He was even gracious enough to give Hyde Park samples of Bermudagrass to trial on the range tee. He was a true leader in every sense of the word, demonstrating it with his involment in local, state and national associations and left his mark with the hundreds of fields he painted around Cincinnati and the US.

The HP logo under the guidance of Darian

Many of you know at Hyde Park how we use social media as a tool to communicate. Darian, with the Twitter handle @whodeyturf was the guru! Many of us in the Turf Industry, enjoyed his enthusiasm with his updates on Projects at Paul Brown, his love for natural grass vs synthetic and of course the many interesting hash tags he would send across the Twitter sphere- I know my favorite was #grasscandomore!

Over the coming days there will be many folks that will try to make sense of his loss and they will have their own stories about Darian and how they were impacted by his empathy, sense of humor and his love for what he did and most of all how he always #TOOKTHETIME...

 

My deepest condolences to his family and friends.... Rest in Peace....

 

 

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