Opinion: Riverhead’s athletic fields are not just inadequate, they’re dangerous

As parents we do our best to make sure our children are always safe. From the day they’re born we buckle them into car seats, make certain our homes are safe and then, when they venture out into the world, we take action to ensure that all our their environments outside of home are safe, too. We would never allow their classrooms to be unsafe and we work to keep our school buildings and all of their components safe. Why, then, would we allow our children to be subjected to unsafe conditions when playing on our athletic fields?

An honest look at the condition of Riverhead’s athletic fields tells a scary story. Our fields are undersized with their sidelines sometimes running directly into fences and just feet from metal posts and bleachers placed dangerously close to where our children run. Our fields contain holes, pits, mud puddles, metal drainage grates and sprinkler heads directly in the areas where kids play. Even the athletes and spectators not using the fields are in danger from overthrown and fast moving balls. Somehow, in all of their efforts to ensure that our school buildings are in shape and that we have new music and art facilities, our school board sacrificed, disregarded, disrespected and worse yet endangered the physical well-being of its 1,400 student athletes.

On top of the real and present dangers existing on our fields, our student athletes also suffer from the simple inadequacy of what our school has provided them. Currently, we do not have a single field that is correctly sized and constructed to play on. Our “new” lacrosse field, which was supposed to be completed prior to the commencement of the season on April 8 is too short and is still not done. It has a “new” score board that runs on a gas generator that typically fails mid-game. The varsity/JV lacrosse practice field, commonly referred to as “The Bowl” is exactly that, nowhere near level or properly sized. Our baseball teams have actually lost games due to a “Riverhead divot” and we cannot schedule home games for baseball and softball on the same day since their outfields intersect.

We would never let our musicians play with broken instruments, our scientists work in unsafe labs or our artists work with broken pencils. It is time to give our hard-working student athletes the facilities they deserve and to reduce the possibility of the serious injuries and lawsuits that are bound to be headed our way. It’s time for turf.

Over the past few decades, our kids have become more and more involved with athletics. Girls’ participation alone has increased exponentially. This is a good thing! We are learning how to get and stay fit while learning valuable life lessons about winning, losing and good sportsmanship. Years ago we had just a few school sports and once a season was over, there was no formal continuation of that sport. Not so nowadays. Our kids play year-round. Grass fields can no longer keep up with the demand our kids are putting on them. They require mowing, striping, pesticide application, fertilizers and REST.

Turf needs minimal maintenance, can be used year round and needs no down time. There are no pesticides applied and the surface is perfectly flat; no divots, no bowls, no drainage grates, sprinkler heads, slippery mud, standing water or other dangerous conditions. Plain and simple, turf is cost-effective, will accommodate our increasing needs and most importantly, keep our kids SAFE.

The cost per taxpayer would be less than 3 cents per day. This cost could even turn out to be less than the cost of maintaining our over-used grass fields when the cost of running indoor practices (requiring overtime pay for staff) and renting outside facilities when our grass fields can’t be used due to poor weather (like we had this year.)

I think our children’s safety is well worth that minimal expense. Together with all of the other benefits they provide, turf fields are an idea whose time has come.

Please vote “YES” for the turf proposition on May 19 so that our student athletes have the safe facilities they deserve.

Andrew Fitzpatrick
Aquebogue
Father of three