Bakersfield needs more soccer facilities

Bakersfield is experiencing a community parks crisis. Too many energetic people, not enough room to recreate.

It may not seem like it if you've driven west on Stockdale Highway and checked out the Park at RiverWalk, a 32-acre patch of gently rolling terrain, man-made ponds and public barbecue grills. Or the Kern River Parkway greenbelt along Truxtun Avenue near Mohawk Drive, or the sports courts at Silvercreek Park, or any number of other municipally manicured settings.

But if you've ever tried to find a public field where your soccer team can practice or a neighborhood park that can accommodate weekly pickup games, you know the frustration.

It's usually not difficult to find a place for a family picnic. But a place for a couple dozen 11-year-olds to chase each other around? Tougher than you might think.

"Simply put, there's a playing-field shortage in this town," said Ron White, president of Golden Empire Youth Football, a homegrown league that's bursting at the seams with 1,700 children.

"It's not just football, it's soccer, too," he said. "We're not keeping up with the recreation needs of this town. When you start planting trees and discouraging youth activities, you know there's a problem."

He's referring to two recent dust-ups involving regular, weekly soccer games in neighborhood parks not built to sustain that kind of activity. Neighbors complained about the crowds, the noise and the cars at Seasons Park and Wilderness Park, both in southwest Bakersfield.

Workers from the city's recreation and parks department responded by planting trees along three sides of Seasons Park, rendering them too small for soccer games. Then they added permanent picnic tables at Wilderness Park, ruining the playing pitch for members of the Bakersfield Youth Soccer League, a predominately Hispanic organization that has about 1,600 kids citywide.

Bakersfield Recreation and Parks Director Dianne Hoover says the parks in question were never intended to support the type and level of activity that full-scale weekend soccer games subject the surrounding neighborhood to. "Those little parks don't have restrooms and they don't have the parking to accommodate that activity," she said.

Allen Abe, the parks department's assistant director, said the city is all too aware of the shortage of playing fields. "It's the explosion of the various sports, not only soccer but other groups as well, combined with the explosion of the population. We just don't have the facilities. The whole growth issue has caught up to us."

Tell us about it, coaches say.

"At some parks we've got four or five teams trying to practice in a space where there's room for maybe three," said Mike Radsick, an organizer for the new Brigade Recreational Soccer League, which starts this fall. "We can't fit everybody in."

The playing fields that are available often suffer from excessive wear and tear. Inspect the battered, dusty soccer pitch at Beach Park some Monday morning -- it looks like a herd of longhorns stopped there to graze.

The Kern County Soccer Park, which occupies county-owned land near Lake Ming and is managed by a foundation, also suffers the effects of heavy use. "It can take you 20 minutes to find a parking space and walk to your field and 20 minutes to get out of there at the end of the game," Radsick said. "I worry parents and grandparents will get tired of dealing with it."

Two trends make the need for additional public playing fields bigger than in generations past. One, kids tend to participate in organized sports more frequently than ever. Gone are the days of the sandlot baseball game. You don't even see kids throwing footballs in the street anymore. Two, the consequences of youthful inactivity are increasingly evident. Children's present-day tendency toward obesity makes the disparity between supply and demand even more critical.

More parks mean bigger maintenance budgets, but consider this upside: a bustling, lively park is a safe park. Abandoned parks breed trouble. Active kids are less likely to go looking for it anyway.

"We're just trying to keep these children off drugs and off the streets," said Ernesto Garay, an organizer with the Bakersfield Youth Soccer League. "Without soccer, maybe they go back to their Nintendo games. Maybe something worse."

At least one new, major city recreation facility is coming, but youth sports organizers wonder if it will come soon enough. The American Youth Soccer Organization's Region 73, which plays at Cal State Bakersfield, is particularly vulnerable. The soccer group faces eventual eviction from the university, which intends to build dormitories where thousands of soccer-playing children now spend Saturdays during the fall.

Region 73 is one of several local youth sports organizations with an eye on the new sports village slated for Gosford Road and Taft Highway. But the park is perhaps five years away.

Meanwhile, Bakersfield continues to grow at a breakneck pace. What will the recreation situation look like in 2012? Not good, from all appearances.

"We'll be in trouble," said White, the youth football organizer. "Some people have nowhere to go now. I'm afraid to think what it might look like then."

Me, too.

Originally published 5/23/2007