For the past three weeks, Fairfax county residents have airedtheir concerns over a new proposal that could simplify the process offield space allocation and spread it more evenly among sports.
The 17-page proposal, written by the Fairfax County AthleticCouncil, was designed in part to allow new and emerging sports accessequal to more established ones.
The proposal assigns each sport a primary season, during which itwould receive preference over other sports. Fall would be the primaryseason for football and soccer; spring for baseball, lacrosse,softball, field hockey and cricket; and summer for high school-agebaseball and softball, summer-only leagues, tournaments, new sportsand rugby.
For example, as a secondary sport in the fall baseball wouldreceive field space after both football and soccer practices andgames are assigned. At the same time, when resources are limited,each primary sport must scale back its field use by the sameproportions.
In a series of five public meetings, representatives from theFairfax Community and Recreation Services and Athletic ServicesDepartments, as well as Fairfax County Athletic Council, listened tocounty residents' thoughts on the proposal. According to PatFranckewitz, Director of Community and Rec Services, the departmentalso received nearly 150 sets of comments online.
These bodies begin a new round of revisions this week, based onwhat they've heard. The proposal could be voted on by the supervisorsin December and put into practice as early as the spring.
'This is a big thing in Fairfax County,' said Franckewitz. 'It's avery emotional topic for people. People have a vested interest . . .and we've taken it very seriously.'
'People seem to agree with the basics of the policy,' Franckewitzsaid. 'It's just really a few issues that need to be worked out. . .. We're down to the wire. We're listening to everything. I know as Iwas going through and listening to the feedback in the meetings, itgenerated a lot of different ideas for me.'
'Anytime you make changes to public policy, people are going to bea little suspicious,' said Harold Leff, who sits on the FCAC'ssubcommittee on field space allocation. 'They're afraid of how it'sgoing to affect them, especially when you're dealing with somethingas precious as field space.'
Leff was surprised, however, that the length of someorganizations' seasons often go beyond the proposal's set seasons.
The Vienna Babe Ruth League run by president C.J. Richardson isone such example. Richardson said his group's most importanttournaments of the season take place during the summer. Becausebaseball is a spring sport, the events could be threatened.
'That's just unthinkable that Fairfax County wouldn't allow BabeRuth or Little League to compete in the District and Statetournaments,' Richardson said. 'But I've seen their work and I trusttheir judgment. Obviously if they don't change their draft at all, Imight feel differently.'
Leff and other representatives said they expected a strongreaction from the soccer community. According to Franckewitz, of thetotal 330,000 field-space users in the county, 77,000 are youthsoccer players, which amounts to a higher participation rate than anyother sport.
Reston Soccer Association President R.J. Dunn expresseddissatisfaction with the proposal on behalf of his 1,700-playerorganization. Under the new proposal, soccer's primary season wouldbe fall. As a result, Dunn said his biggest concern is what wouldhappen to his spring soccer programs.
'We have higher numbers in the spring than the fall,' said Dunn.'Everyone I talk to is annoyed. What this has boiled down to is thedeath of spring soccer.'
Dunn said if he loses any of the field space in the spring, he'llhave to terminate the spring play or drastically cut back theprogram.
Dunn also expressed what has become a common complaint in thesoccer community, that the proposal generally does not give enoughweight to the sheer number of soccer players.
'You can't just push 77,000 kids out,' said Dunn. 'The biggestproblem with soccer is that we aren't united, we're each individualgroups, we don't speak as one group.'
Said Leff: '[The Soccer Community is] by far the largest group,but I can't just see giving all the fields to them. . . . Socceralready has the majority of the fields in the spring and fall.'
Various sports groups also expressed concern about the proposal'sincreased requirements for the percentage of in-county residents oneach team, from two-thirds to 75 percent. Though the proposal gives aone year grace period, Dunn said that the teams already in placeshould be able to stay together.
'No way in my right mind would I break up a team. These are kids,'Dunn said. 'We have several teams that are nationally ranked, I haveto tell them because of Fairfax County rules, we have to kick offplayers?'
Fairfax Adult Softball President Tom Oravec said his organization,which is made up of 11,000 softball players between the ages of 18and 72, is also uncomfortable with the new 75-percent in-countyresident rule.
'Most of our people live in the county, so it wouldn't affect ustoo much,' Oravec said. 'But we would like to keep it at the two-thirds level. That's what the people in our group want. In themeetings, I was fighting for the people who live out of county tokeep the rule.'
Overall, Vienna Youth Inc. girls' lacrosse commissioner and girls'field hockey organizer Kay Rupert supports the proposal because shebelieves it will help both of her sports.
'They're designating field hockey as a spring season, and thatmeans they're recognizing it as a sport,' Rupert said. 'It'sheartening to know it's being recognized, and maybe down the line itcan be given space [through the county].'
However, Rupert's problem is that field hockey becomes a springsport under the proposal. High Schools, as well as her program, playin the fall.
'I don't want field hockey going up against lacrosse,' saidRupert. 'They should complement each other...in a perfect world.'
Debbie Deutsch, communications and planning division manager forthe county Department of Community and Rec Services, said everycomment will be considered and responded to by the FCAC subcommittee.The Rec Services Dept and the subcommittee plan to present a finaldraft to full FCAC in late October.
'This can all be worked out,' Leff said. 'All we're trying to dois fairly allocate the space. People think they're only going to getspace in their season. They don't realize they will get some space,it just might be in a different location than they're used to havingit.'
