Credit: Jessica Xia
Over time, the addition of new sports at Aragon has been a highly celebrated topic, and rightly so. However, with the addition of boys and girls lacrosse eight years ago, and the recent creation of a girls flag football team as a fall sport for the 2023 season, a major issue that comes up is the lack of field space at Aragon.
The main football field is constantly in use and frequently split up among teams. Though efforts are made to evenly distribute sports on the football field across three seasons, four soccer teams share it during winter and three lacrosse teams plus track and field vie for field time in spring. With the proposed addition of girls flag football, the field will be split up between two teams during the fall season as well.
Field space is already an issue when one or two sports are in action but when two seasons overlap, the field space becomes even more scarce.
“It does get tricky … when the fall and winter sports overlap and when the winter and spring sports overlap,” said athletic director Steve Sell. “It’s kind of like refereeing a fight between a brother and sister [over] the last piece of pizza. There’s not enough field space to go around and people get … a little bit testy.”
This lack of field space leads to coaches each trying to reserve the field and competing with one another for the right to train. When deciding who gets the field, the many priorities are weighed. For example, teams with meets or games will get priority over those just scheduling practice. Furthermore, teams that are in season or competing in playoffs get priority over teams in preseason.
“We have a Google Sheet and we look at it and prioritize who gets what time,” Sell said. “There really has to be a spirit of ‘we’re all in this together’ among coaches … They might grumble a little bit because they want to practice [and] they want the kids to improve and I have no problem with that. Our coaches are very cooperative and understanding and, for the most part, work well together.”
The layout of Aragon plays a part in this issue. Aragon has about fifty more students than both San Mateo and Hillsdale High School but has a significantly smaller campus. Not only is the campus small, but it is very sloped and hilly, so it is difficult to add additional athletic facilities.
“Lacrosse [has been offered for] eight years [so it’s a] pretty new sport,” girls lacrosse coach Ashley Parham said. “As more and more sports are becoming available to students, the fight for field spaces keeps becoming greater. But it’s unfortunate because we have the biggest population in the district, [and] I think we have the smallest campus footprint wise. You see schools [such as] Hillsdale [and] San Mateo [where] they have these huge fields with not as large of populations. So it’s just unfortunate where we’re located.”
“Our coaches are very cooperative and understanding and, for the most part, work well together”
Another factor playing into the limited field space was the extreme weather this year. The grass fields couldn’t be utilized and the discus cage was knocked down by a tree. These issues led to more reliance on and demand for the main football field.
One example of this was at the beginning of the spring season, the girls lacrosse team was struggling to find field space since the soccer teams competing in playoffs got priority for the football field.
“Soccer season overlaps with the beginning of lacrosse season,” Parham said. “Not only do some [lacrosse] players play soccer … but [soccer has] the [priority for] field time since they’re in season … [For] the first month of the season, especially when they make the playoffs, we don’t have field space. So sometimes we use the softball field, but … it was super rainy this year [and] it was muddy, so it didn’t make sense to use that … I’m a big believer in bigger, stronger, faster athletes so we spend a lot of time in the weight room.”
As part of a solution, the school is beginning the renovation of the baseball field near the tennis courts this May after school ends. The field will be switched from grass to artificial turf and will be equipped with lights. This second turf field will provide another option for the soccer, football and lacrosse teams struggling to find field space and will help to mitigate this issue.
“The thing that helps the most is lights,” said Sell. “The … good thing about lighting fields … is you get fields to operate like gyms, where they don’t shut down when it gets dark.”
One example of a team that already practiced late in order to maximize field space was the boys varsity soccer team.
“I [didn’t] see any challenges [getting field space] because our practice is so late, [from] seven thirty till nine,” sophomore soccer player Brian Cervantes said. “I do see other teams have conflicts … We usually see [lacrosse] and we see multiple other teams practicing all [at] once … We practice super late just [so] we can get the whole field.”
While the baseball field renovations will begin soon, the field space issue is one that won’t disappear immediately. The baseball field turf will not be completed in time for next year, and with the addition of girls flag football, the main field will likely be a little more crowded until the renovations are completed. However, for many athletes, it is comforting to know that there are improvements on the way and new facilities to be enjoyed in the future. For now, patience and compromise is the best that can be done.
