Nationals, poor planning put strain on TWU’s fields

Posted by admin on Sep 22, 2009 in Sports, Volume 14 Issue 1 | 0 comments

North Field, South Field, Third Field. Ever heard of them? If you have, you likely haven’t spent a great amount of time playing on them the past couple of years. TWU’s field space has become a major concern for athletic directors at TWU, not to mention an issue for students who can make little use of the fields. The cause is twofold. The first reason is the CIS National Soccer Championship; the second reason—God help us all—is money.

Here’s a history lesson. Many years ago, North Field was all that existed. The Spartans were not yet at CIS-level and so the field was just another grass pitch. Actually, as Dean of Human Kinetics Blair Whitmarsh states, “it was a pond.” So TWU decided it was time to renovate the field, hoping to make it one of the best in Canada. The cost of new grass, seed, sand, and a water drainage system came to approximately $1 million. At that time, South Field was also born.

Dale Baumgartner, the director of Rec. Services noted, “South Field was a direct result of student initiative.” South Field was granted to rugby to play on while North Field was given to Spartan’s Soccer.

Within two years rugby had died and soccer was formed to play on South Field. Enter issue #1. South Field had not been maintained to the same standards as North Field. As Baumgartner stated, “Sixty people get sole preserve of North Field, while in a normal year, our field venues are stressed to the max.” The problem? Mike Teeter, coach of Men’s Titans Soccer explained, “The reality was, South Field was Rec. Services’ field. [It] was used for many practices—four to eight a week—plus two games, with intramurals.”

The fight over the field came to a climax over the past two years. The Spartans wanted to maintain North Field, but needed a second high-quality field to host the CIS Soccer Championships. So TWU and its different athletic groups decided that hosting the CIS Championship should be a priority and that South Field would need to be improved.

Enter issue #2. Rec. Services state they were never told or presented a plan about the Spartans bidding for the CIS Soccer Championships. As Baumgartner says, “The Spartans CIS bid was without any knowledge from anyone. We didn’t know a thing.”

Blair Whitmarsh did note that there was a miscommunication over the dilemma of South Field, but stated Rec. Services had an idea.

In any case, for the past two years, North Field and South Field have been the fields of the Spartans. As a result, Titans Soccer, which used to play and practice on South Field, has been moved off-campus for the second year in a row, as South Field recovers from a harsh winter, putting the growing season four to six weeks behind schedule. Baumgartner also noted that “CAN-AM would have been on Third Field or off campus if not for the help of Sheldon Loeppky,” who acts as the gatekeeper to South Field this year.

Currently, Rec. Services is using Third Field for intramurals, events, and staff/faculty games. The concern with Third Field is that it was originally designed as a field house with a small patch of grass on the North Side. The field is overused, not properly maintained, and has been the subject of complaints from environmental groups in B.C. The field has had minimal work done to it, with little money invested to help. As Baumgartner observes, “There is no green space left on campus.”

With many questions and few answers, a Student Activity fee of $55 a semester has been added to tuition this year. The main goal of this fee is to bring in an artificial turf field for everyone that can be used 24/7. This would have minimal maintenance work, longevity, and it would be a new high-class turf field for practices, intramurals, and dorm events. The cost is about $1 million. Here’s a mathematical breakdown: if 3,300 students pay $110, you get more than $350,000 a year. The problem with this idea is the recession. TWU went to the bank with a plan to bring in an artificial turf field this past summer. The field would have been paid off in eight years, financed by the students. In these times of economic uncertainty, however, the bank would not give TWU the loan. So for the second year in a row South Field is being groomed for the CIS Nationals while Third Field becomes frequently overused, leading to its gradual demise.

There are definite problems with the field space at TWU. As Whitmarsh states, “The reality is that TWU needs three full fields with adequate resources for all three fields.”

Baumgartner sees the issue slightly differently. “We don’t have the facilities to run Nationals at TWU, which has put incredible strain on relations at the school,” he says. The result of the situation will be a game of wait and see. Rec. Services plans to use the field after CIS Nationals are over, stating, “Once these two years are over, we will go back.” Only time will tell what will happen to TWU’s three fields.