Little room to roam

Bryce Alderton

Marce Almaraz returned to his original problem -- three lost fields

for next fall’s AYSO Region 57 soccer season.

The region’s commissioner, Almaraz, entering his third year at the

helm, glanced over the schedule of field usage for the fall season, a

guide to which teams from various fall sports in Newport Beach can

use certain fields at designated times.

“We’ll have three teams on one field,” Almaraz said last week,

following a city of Newport Beach Recreation and Senior Services

Department youth sports commission meeting, where field usage was

discussed.

Commissioners from youth soccer, adult softball, Little League

baseball and youth football send in their requests to the city for

fields they wish to occupy at set times.

In the fall, soccer teams are traditionally granted the most

fields since the sport boasts the largest enrollment.

With enrollment up about 200 players from last year, Region 57

will boast roughly 2,200 for next fall’s season, according to

Almaraz. He prioritized which fields he wanted to use and handed his

request to the city, which gave Almaraz fields at Buffalo Hills,

Andersen, San Miguel, Irvine Terrace, and all four fields each at

Lincoln and Arroyo Park.

“We are out of space,” Almaraz added. “The biggest concern at that

point is safety. Bigger kids kick a lot harder.”

Teams will practice and play wherever they can, Almaraz said, with

some squads featuring younger players typically using smaller fields

while older athletes will occupy larger areas of land.

When it comes to field allotments, time must be taken seriously.

According to the schedule for next fall’s field locations, the

city allowed AYSO Region 97 to use the fields at Mariners Park from 5

p.m. until dusk. Newport Beach’s youth flag football gets the same

field from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Region 57 splits field usage at Arroyo Park with the city’s adult

softball league. Soccer teams may practice from 4 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

while softball plays under the lights from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Similar jockeying for field use also occurs in Costa Mesa with

teams from Region 120, said commissioner Mike Barr.

Newport Beach handles field allowances using similar criteria to

what was developed in Costa Mesa, Barr said.

“Residents make up close to 90% of a team,” Barr said when asked

if the city has an requirement that residents make up more 50% of an

AYSO team, as required in Newport Beach.

With Costa Mesa virtually land-locked, there is little or no room

for further development, so the number of players in Region 120 has

topped out in the last few years, Barr said.

As of last Wednesday, Barr -- a Region 120 coach and commissioner

since 1997 -- said he had about 1,200 players registered for the

upcoming fall season, down from about 1,400 last year.

“There is a lot of resident turnover,” Barr, a Newport Beach

resident, said of the slight enrollment decline. “Kids will then

replace the ones who have left, so there is not any growth in our

program.”

Region 120 teams primarily use four fields at the Costa Mesa Farm

Sports Complex along with three at Costa Mesa High for practices and

games. But teams will also use grassy areas at Balearic Park and

TeWinkle School.

“We do use other schools for practice,” Barr said. “When I recruit

coaches, I tell them to practice at a field close to their homes. I

try to practice at Victoria because I live on the Westside.”

Four or five teams composed of younger players might use one field

at the same time, while two groups of older children might occupy one

field at once.

The lights at the Farm Complex have helped tremendously with

scheduling, but Barr, whose three children all play AYSO, believes it

doesn’t have to stop there.

“It helps immensely,” he said of the Farm Complex’s lighted

fields. “But we still have shortage of lighted fields for the fall

season.”

Barr has contacted the manufacturer of the lights at the Farm

Complex and is studying possible venues where more fixtures could be

installed.

“There will be numerous hurdles before anything happens, though,”

he cautioned.

Chris Sarris, commissioner of Region 97, would also like to see

more lighted fields available for use during the fall, when it

becomes darker earlier.

Region 97 teams use three fields at Kaiser, and two each at

Mariners Park and Harper School.

Sarris expects to add another 500 players to the 1,450 already

registered for the fall season. A year ago, region 97 had 1,500

players.

“We’ve been growing by 10% a year,” he said.

The battle for turf affects not only AYSO teams, but club

affiliates as well.

Robert Brown, whose daughter plays on the Orange Coast United

girls under-11 soccer team titled “Rush,” saw the formation of the

team four years ago. The goal was to give players a more advanced

level of instruction without the pressure of winning, he said.

The Rush recently earned status to play in the Coast Soccer

League’s gold bracket beginning next year, joining seven other teams

from Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

OCU, like other club sports teams, is a for-profit organization.

Oftentimes, these teams are not made up of more than 50% of Newport

Beach residents, therefore limiting the ability to secure fields.

As part of the city’s youth sports commission, AYSO and other

groups which fall into that category are run by volunteers, employ a

“minimum-play” rule -- children getting to play at least half of a

game -- and must have an open enrollment policy to all players

regardless of skill level.

Fields are allocated to these groups first, with priority given to

teams that include the most residents of that particular city -- such

as Newport Beach, Marie Knight, Newport’s director of recreation and

senior services said.

Rush practices on a small plot of grass on Estancia High’s campus.

“AYSO is an amazing program that allows all kids to play and

continue in sports, they should have first priority of the fields,”

Brown said. “After that, the club teams should sit at the same table

with us, waiting for the scraps.”

Brown countered that the city gives access to other club teams

before thinking of OCU.

“The teams that have a greater percentage of residents get first

choice at fields,” Knight said. “If there are 4,000 kids playing and

of those, 1,000 are city residents, then the organization gets 1/4

of the fields to use.”

The city uses the same criteria for allocating fields to club

teams as it does for its youth groups: Priority is given to the sport

in season, number of Newport Beach residents within each

organization, official rosters submitted by each league and the

amount of fields available.

Under current Newport Beach guidelines, 75% of available fields

are given to that season’s sports while 17% are slotted for

out-of-season activities. The remaining 8% of the available fields

are not allocated and are used for maintenance rotation and community

use. Club teams fall under this designation.

The supply of players and teams exist, but the city can only

accommodate so much, Knight said.

“It is a complicated system we have worked hard to tighten up,”

Knight said of the criteria for field allocations. “It seems to be

working pretty good. There are more requests than we can accommodate,

which is why we have a system rather than just arbitrarily making a

decision on who gets the fields.”

Brown has noticed an increase in the number of soccer players

running around area fields.

“More kids are playing soccer now, Brown said. “I have friends

that run baseball leagues who are having a difficult time recruiting.

AYSO has now got teams running year-round. Soccer is an easier sport

for anyone to become involved with. The parents like it too because

it’s done in an hour.”