Despite the arrival of warmer weather, Brookline grass fields appear empty. While field closures have impacted the larger community, they are hitting close to home for school athletes as the spring sports season commences.
According to an alert from the Brookline Recreation Center, all grass fields in Brookline will remain closed for March. Among those impacted are students enrolled in outdoor spring sports such as softball and ultimate frisbee.
Athletic Director Kyle Williams said that running around in cleats on the soil at this time of year can displace the grass roots and dirt, causing grassless spots to form in the spring. He said that from his understanding, the fields are closed based on what is best for grass maintenance.
“I trust the professionals to manage our fields and that’s their job and that’s what they are trained to do,” Williams said. “I trust that they’re doing the right thing there, and I wouldn’t want to damage something for short-term gain if it was going to be a long-term impact.”
Junior and captain of the girls ultimate frisbee team Mattie Cox said that for the first few weeks of the season, the team is practicing in the Pavilion, located on the top floor of Tappan Gym.
“Everyone just thinks it’s annoying to be in a gym. No one likes it,” Cox said. “Everyone’s just like, ‘we want to be outside,’ because it’s spring and it’s nice. It’s played outside, so we want to be outside.”
Williams also said that the spring sports season is one of the biggest, with roughly 710 students enrolled. He said the Downes Field and Skyline facilities they used were overpacked last fall.
“You get all excited, you’re revved up, you get through tryouts and then you’re like, okay, we’re back inside, we’re in the Pavilion or we’re doing a classroom session. We’re doing some team building,” Williams said. “It does give some opportunities for coaches to do things a little differently. We’d obviously rather be outside playing, but we understand that you just, you need to balance it in New England.”
Junior and captain of the girls ultimate frisbee team Natalie Price said people can focus indoors because no wind could pick up the disc. However, she said many people are thrown off when they move outside because the weather impacts how the game is played.
“It’s frustrating,” Price said. “I mean, at some point, everyone gets used to it once we do start playing outside. But it definitely always impacts the beginning of our season because people who are coming into the sport for the first time, who’ve never played, if your only experience playing is inside, you’re not prepared enough to actually play on a big field with wind and rain and other elements.”
Williams said the school tries to partner with local private schools to gain more access to synthetic turf. In past years, they have used Park School and Beaver Country Day School facilities to host sports practices.
Price said that field closures have impacted their practices more this year than in previous years. They said outdoor elements impact the team’s game performance and that the team is fortunate to practice on Windsor’s turf field this year.
“This year we’ve been lucky enough to play this week at the Windsor School, which has a turf field,” Price said. “But next week we have our first game and next week we’re practicing all inside and I think it really makes it so our team is less prepared for our games.”
Cox said she wants the team to win three games because last year they won two, and they’ve been increasing in wins each year. However, she said that other schools have been practicing on outdoor fields for much longer, so the team is already disadvantaged.
“I would say it’s one of the hardest sports to practice in the gym because frisbees are in the air,” Cox said. “And while other things like balls are in the air, frisbees are a lot harder to aim.”
Despite the desire of spring sports teams to get back on the field as soon as possible, Williams said that the school is responsible for upholding facilities used by the entire community.
“We’ve got an obligation to our other teams, right, that’ll be impacting our fall teams or, later this spring, be impacting community users, and we are part of a much larger community than just high school athletics,” Williams said. “If we go out and use and abuse fields in ways that they’re not supposed to be, it’s not going to be good for us or really for anyone long-term.”
