For the Morgan Hill Pop Warner football coaches, 2003 has been a
very successful season but also a frustrating one.
For the Morgan Hill Pop Warner football coaches, 2003 has been a very successful season but also a frustrating one.
Even though the organization could send as many as four of its six teams to the playoffs, coaches in the league are anything but happy because of an ongoing problem with Live Oak High’s football field that has prevented the Raiders from playing all but one of their scheduled home games in Morgan Hill.
Due to miscommunication between the contractor that laid the sod for the field and the School District, the field was released for play before it was ready. That, in addition to overuse and over-watering, according to Jay Beals of beals sport, the construction manager for the project, caused the condition of the field to deteriorate.
Bare spots, damaged roots and packed down areas have caused district officials to restrict use of the field to junior varsity and varsity football games only.
“That field looks torn up. It didn’t look like a new field,” Junior Pee Wee Black Coach Rich Martinez said about his impression when he and other Pop Warner officials arrived at Richert field to get the snack shack ready for first game of year at 6:30 a.m.
“We’re like, ‘This is the new field we’re supposed to be playing on?’ I think they were trying to cover it up and took little short cuts. They were trying to save money, I think. It’s been a weird year this year.”
Pop Warner officials would like the School District to consider letting the organization take over the Britton Middle School field, which is being used for practice, and make improvements.
President Rich Phillips asked trustees last week to let the organization improve the field and use it for games. But Pee Wee Coach Mike Gustin said the field is in terrible shape and isn’t anywhere near being ready for game use.
The field would most likely take a lot of work and cost the organization a lot of money.
“It’s not even in any condition for a practice,” Gustin said. “There are pot holes all over it. Kids can twist an ankle and really hurt themselves. They have twisted ankles and have fallen in holes, but nothing where they’ve been out for a week or anything like that. I’m puzzled that that hasn’t happened.
“You’d be shocked to see the holes over there in that field. There are eight-inch deep holes.”
Gustin said the teams that practice at the field always have dirt and shovels nearby and are able to fill the holes when needed.
Another objection came from Morgan Hill Pony Baseball. During the Oct. 20 School Board meeting, two members spoke up, saying they would like to have a voice in discussions of this type, because the baseball fields are used extensively by the more than 700 players of the organization.
Britton field use is expected to return to the board at a later date.
The damage to Richert Field and resulting lack of a home field for the Pop Warner teams has caused considerable uproar among coaches and parents.
“Every week we’re not sure where we’re playing,” said Mark Ramirez, who coaches the Junior Pee Wee Silver team, which consists of 9, 10 and 11 year olds. “We’ve got to figure out where we’re playing and then inform parents where we’re playing and what time and how to get there. There’s a lot of distraction there.”
Midget Football Coach Jimmy Soto, who has been coaching Pop Warner for nine years, said the whole situation creates a big hassle for the entire organization, the parents and the kids.
“All these people pay all this money and we can’t even use our home field,” he said. “We have to use other high schools to play our home games. It takes away a lot of money from our organization.”
Martinez said that while some of the Raiders home games have had to be played at neutral fields such as Hollister and Gilroy, others have had to be switched to the opponent’s field, which some coaches thing is unfair and can help give the other team an unfair advantage.
“It’s a big disadvantage. We don’t have a field to count on,” Ramirez said. “The kids feel like there’s no security of a home field. We’re kind of roaming around like nomads. That’s not a good way to run a program.”
Finding a place to play is just one of the dilemmas that is weighing on the minds of the coaches. The loss of revenue that the league has been hit with could be as big a problem as any.
League officials estimate that the organization has lost close to $30,000 in revenue because they don’t any income coming in from their snack shack. Although Morgan Hill Pop Warner does have some income from fundraisers, the majority of the league’s income is made from the snack shack.
That revenue is used to buy equipment and other supplies. With the loss of revenue, the league may run into some financial problems in the future.
“Playing on someone else’s field, they want all the revenue for the snack shack,” Ramirez said. “We’ve lost a lot of money.”
Overall, the Pop Warner coaches just want to get a field to play on and get the problem taken care of and in the past.
“It upsets everyone – my coaching staff, the parents, the kids,” Soto said. “Pretty much everybody lives in Morgan hill. Everybody has to go out of their way to go to other fields.
“It’s unfortunate because every team in the organization is doing fairly well. There should be three or four teams that go to the playoffs. It hurts – our first round of playoffs would be a home game.”
Ramirez said even though he has tried not to make an issue of the field situation with his players, they have asked about it.
“At the beginning of the season they kept asking why we weren’t playing at Live Oak and kept switching to other sights,” he said. “We just said, ‘well, the field’s not ready.’ They were curious.”
Staff Writer Marilyn Dubil contributed to this story.
