COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:Pop Warner field switch is nonsensical

It seemed that we finally had peace. Not many days ago, a platoon of youth sports organizations in Costa Mesa — AYSO Regions 120 and 97, Costa Mesa Pop Warner and Newport-Mesa Soccer Club — were passing the pipe, giddy that they had, at long last, divvied up the city’s handful of lighted athletic fields without coming to blows or trash-talking their mommies.

This was good news. Earlier field allocations huddles — hosted twice yearly by the city’s recreation staff — were more often pickled in tension and animosity. Sparking the angst was the city’s somewhat archaic Field Allocation Policy, but mostly its pitiful lack of lighted athletic fields. The confabs were like watching boogered towheads scrap over a couple of marbles.

But with the city’s investment in a fleet of portable lights and, more newsworthy, its major investment to permanently light two more fields at the Farm Sports Complex this fall, the field-shortage boil had been lanced. And with it, any cause for these sports groups to dust it up.

Or so it seemed. At the May 23 gathering of the Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commission, Costa Mesa Pop Warner dropped a stinker in the middle of the field love-in. Steve Mensinger — a bloke who surfaced as a new mouthpiece for the youth football program — lobbied the commission in the name of “field equity” for Pop Warner’s use of the middle two Farm fields. And not just for practices, but games, too.

This was curious. At the same meeting, Ed Baume — a long-time Pop Warner volunteer and the organization’s representative at the “peace” meeting — told the commission the organization had formally requested use of the utility fields at Costa Mesa High School for practice, and the high school’s football field along Arlington Drive for games. Baume had been dispatched by Costa Mesa Pop Warner President Ron Nugent to make this request at the earlier “peace meeting.” Jana Ransom, Costa Mesa’s Parks and Recreation Director, confirmed to the commission that the city had been told by Pop Warner that they would be happy to have the fields at Costa Mesa High School.

But then Mensinger showed up, and chalked up the neck-snapping turn of events to “miscommunication” within the Pop Warner leadership. As it turns out, there’s a scrum under way between two warring factions on the Pop Warner board. On one side, a minority happy to finally have the lighted fields it needs, and to continue playing its game on the same field it has used for at least the last decade.

On the other side are Mensinger and a cadre of board members who believe the Farm is a better place to practice and host its home games.

Apart from shattering the delicate peace that had finally emerged among the youth sports organizations in town, Pop Warner’s field flip-flop is nonsensical. Wedging several Saturday tackle football games between four soccer games invites disruption (soccer balls flying into the middle of football games and vice versa) and neighborhood tumult (Extra points and field goals heading into backyards or the Farm parking lot). Also, the middle two fields at the Farm are not large enough to accommodate a regulation football field.

Seeing that Costa Mesa Pop Warner will have a new, state-of-the-art home at the new Estancia High School football stadium for its fall 2008 season, it’s a head-scratcher to understand why Pop Warner would invest thousands of dollars in permanent goal posts and other equipment to play a single season at the Farm, force AYSO to push games to other venues all over town, and poison the well of goodwill the city has worked so hard to create.

Costa Mesa Pop Warner fumbled this one.