Field conditions - is this normal?

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Nov 20, 2020
995
93
SW Missouri
I maintained the athletic fields at a small D3 school for several years. Turface or an off brand conditioner will help hold moisture, but when it gets really dry you will still have the same dust problem. Rocks can be controlled by having the team do a 'rock walk' before every practice. Eventually you can get them under control.

Everyone thinks that turf is maintenance free that is certainly not the case. The crumb rubber infill moves and must be broomed back into place, particularly where the players slide. And it must also be supplemented on a regular basis. The rubber keeps the fibers upright, if the fibers are allowed to lay over the sun will cause them to deteriorate and the turf will need to be replaced well before it's normal life span, and the warranty will not cover it unless you can provide proof of regular maintenance. And turf is HOT!! I don't know you deal with that in the South.

DD learned this last weekend. Her TB had their first weekend tournament together at an all turf facility. Clean and well kept. But temps hit 85 - 90. DD said just standing at 3B she could feel it radiating up. Pros and cons to everything.
 
Jan 22, 2011
1,610
113
Checked baseball facilities yesterday - no rocks, a couple little pebbles, nicely watered (or soil conditioners holding some moisture) and chalked and they didn't even have a game yesterday. Parents would be more than happy to get out there and drag the field - we're not allowed, "we'll take care of it" or "I'd do something but the coaches haven't complained". Our AD even turned away a donation we secured for dugout covers - after much complaining he bought them anyway and they have been sitting in a shed for over a month. Yesterday DD was hit in the head at practice, in the dugout, by a pop up - thankfully she happened to be wearing her batting helmet.

After a year of advocating for better facilities, and getting yessed to death, the softball boosters are getting ready to circulate a petition and file a title IX complaint with the BOE, Super, and AD. We have an ancient, poorly maintained facility with a broken sprinkler (for at least 2 years now) and baseball has everything - real dugouts (we have a rusty uncovered fence), they have a real outfield fence (we have a temp fence for the season), they have lights, water fountains, cameras, and ADA access to the bleachers - we have none of those. The MS uses the field for recess year-round, even though there is a field a 30 second walk away - it's "too far". We also have a new coach this year who only a handful of times submitted highlights to the local paper and doesn't know how to calculate a BA - included BB's in the calculation.... Sorry for the rant, I'm so frustrated - we have a 150M budget but they can't find a scrap of $ for the girls. Well they are going to have to.

I've found that after being ignored a few times with concerns about equitability between softball and baseball, saying the phrase "Who is the district's Title IX compliance officer I should talk to?" to the Superintendent or AD gets some results.

You can file a complaint online with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. If the compliance officer question doesn't spur some action, you might want to say that you have been looking at the DoE Office of Civil Rights website.

We have a similar issue as another poster. During lunch and recess the Middle School students aren't allowed on the baseball field or the football field, but are allowed on the softball field. Most every day I have to pick a few napkins, drink cups, and/or food wrappers and containers.
 
Jan 22, 2011
1,610
113
May 18th, 1973 8 inches of snow fell on my town in Central NY. I was 5 years old, but I'd blocked it out until our HS Alumni facebook page posted the story the other day.
 
Oct 1, 2014
2,220
113
USA
May 18th, 1973 8 inches of snow fell on my town in Central NY. I was 5 years old, but I'd blocked it out until our HS Alumni facebook page posted the story the other day.
I grew up just a bit further west of there in the Finger Lakes region (between Rochester & Syracuse) so I was very used to the snow and the "lake effect". The weather is terrible here in CO...no one should even think about living here. ;-)
 
Oct 1, 2014
2,220
113
USA
Rocks can be controlled by having the team do a 'rock walk' before every practice. Eventually you can get them under control.
Our HS team did that for all 4 years...between that and getting the Park & Rec District to stop dumping crappy fill dirt we had it under semi-control for my twins Senior year.

Our Softball Field sits right next to the BB field and the difference is glaring. BB has a great booster club and puts a ton of $$$ into their facilities. They do NOT share well with softball and NO ONE outside of the BB team is allowed on their field. The softball field on the other hand is co-managed with the Park & Rec District (think Beer League and Youth games), the HS Gym class (kickball is the worst - the kids line up along the backstop and are constantly leaning on and kicking in the fence, you can imagine what this does to passed balls) and the dog walking community uses the field also. Add to that the aforementioned wildlife issue on the field and it's literally a crapshoot as to what you'll find there on any given day. Dugouts, scoreboard, OF fence, parking, porta potties and just about anything else you could think of are not even close to what the BB team gets to enjoy. Never brought up Title IX due to other lawsuits that the POS Softball Wanna Be Coach that was there for a couple years started against the school and a few parents (that's a completely different story) but it was discussed on more than one occasion.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
Title IX keeps being thrown around and the educator in me can’t help but correct this point that several posters have made.

Title IX does not guarantee that the baseball and softball fields be equal. It actually doesn’t guarantee that any fields of like or similar sports between men and women to be equal/similar. It’s a across the whole athletic program.

Side note - the softball field and baseball field at my HS field are both very nice as far as the surfaces go. The softball field however, has a press box, locker room, and PA system that the baseball field does not have.
 
May 15, 2008
1,913
113
Cape Cod Mass.
I coached varsity softball this year at a public charter school with no facilities of it's own. The girls play on a field in a public park. The coaches prep the field for games, including having to drag it manually. The baseball team plays on a field that is used by a team in the famous Cape Cod Baseball League.
 
Jan 25, 2022
881
93
Our little league softball field is in bad shape. It gets used a few times a year, then everyone forgets about it because it technically belongs to the elementary school, which is adjacent to the baseball little league field. There's no mower or drags for it so it's generally barren and lumpy.

We had a ton of rocks on it a couple years ago. I have no idea where they came from, but we picked up a bunch by hand, then told the girls to take 5 with them at the end of every practice. That knocked it out pretty quickly really.

I've seen a lot of different fields the past few years, and most of them have some sort of issue that I would correct if it were mine. The HS field we play on for MS/HS games is decent, but has its own issues. that would probably annoy someone else. It's just a lot of upkeep when you have a life outside the fence.
 

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