From Board Work Session minutes (6/13/2011): “He (Dr. Newcome) said the football team said they would do any repairs to the field for any soccer games that remain to be played.”
“The football boosters have been good stewards of the grounds.” (Lisa Bowman)
“He (Mr. Norris) trusts the football team will make the field suitable to play soccer the following week.”
From e-mails between myself & the School Board:
Mr. Norris: “We have been given assurances that if there is rain the game will be rescheduled.”
Questions asked by me & not answered in that email exchange: “How can we be certain the field will be fixed and playable in 2 days? I don’t know anyone who can grow grass in 2 days. ......What is the soccer team supposed to do if the field isn’t ready?”
Jack Mariano’s color commentary of the Friday night game in Parkesburg Today: “On a chilly, damp evening on a rain soaked field,..”
Octorara Field Hockey on facebook (10/14/2011): WETorara strikes again! Today's game against rival Unionville has been canceled.
See the pictures in the link below to see the progression of the deterioration of the field:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2526458765972.236184.1388517241&type=1&l=59790307da If the link does not take you directly there, please copy/paste into your web browser. The first few pictures are the field right before homecoming. The next 3 pictures are the field the day after homecoming. The rest are from after Friday night's game.
The field was never completely fixed after last season. There were large patches of dirt that got bigger after the homecoming football game. Those larger patches were not fixed and now we have the destruction of the field following the game Friday night, October 14, 2011.
The Board made assurances the field would be fixed and that the soccer teams would not suffer. The field has not been fixed: Not after last season, not after the homecoming game & not after Friday night’s game.
This District has made it quite clear between the Homecoming fiasco (where everyone else suffered inconvenience so that football could play on the soccer field) and now allowing football to play on a drenched soccer field when there were 4 days of home soccer games left in the season, that the only athletes who matter are the football players. The safety and dignity of the soccer players is not a concern to this District.
The Boys’ Soccer team had to play a game on that “field” at 1:00 p.m. the day after the field was destroyed. We are very fortunate that no one was seriously injured. But what might happen when the field dries out & those gouges harden? What happens when a soccer player’s foot gets stuck in one of those gouges? A broken ankle? A torn ACL?
The Soccer Club has spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless man hours to make that field the best grass soccer field in the county. It is now nothing more than a mud-hole.
The football team cannot possibly keep their word that the field would be fixed for the rest of the soccer season. And the soccer players will have to suffer for it. They do not deserve that.
Please keep this in mind when the football team asks next year to play on the soccer field during soccer season. I would certainly expect that the answer next year should be “no”.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
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It is interesting that I had a member of the community say to me over the weekend (paraphrased), "I see that the Board asked the public to trust them concerning contract negotiations. How can we trust them about that, when we couldn't trust them with the decision about using the soccer field?"
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