Decatur Stadium Lacrosse Confusion?
Decatur Metro | March 29, 2010What is this all about? CSD’s Athletics Director Carter Wilson sent this letter out to the community…
As you can imagine, the upgrade in the facilities at Decatur High School has created a great deal of excitement among both the students and the staff. From a teaching perspective, we are now able to offer a greater variety of courses and engage our students like never before.
In terms of athletics, having a place to call home has meant a lot to all of our teams. The football team had a non-losing season, our basketball teams both had winning seasons, and our spring sports are all off to great starts. Much of this is directly related to the facility improvements on campus.
Recently, there was confusion regarding the use of the field at Decatur Stadium by youth lacrosse teams.
While there were many disappointed players and much misinformation about Decatur High School selecting one team over another, the truth of the matter is that Decatur High School tried to help with the only available time that we had for the entire weekend. On that weekend, the field was used as a staging area for the Decatur Education Foundation Road Race, high school soccer practice, high school lacrosse practice, and a college lacrosse game (that was ultimately cancelled). There was never a formal request for the field by a partner agency and there was no other opportunity to get youth lacrosse onto the field that weekend. Partner agencies are welcome to use the field but they must make the written request in a timely manner. Using the field at Decatur Stadium as an alternate site for rainouts does not work because the scheduled events that we have generally take place rain or shine.
We are very happy to have new facilities and we fully understand that we have opportunities to share these facilities with partner agencies in the City of Decatur as well as with the community at large. We have worked hard to determine our own needs with these facilities as well as trying to develop a process that will allow usage by outside groups.
Our athletic teams put in a tremendous amount of time in practice and in competitions. If the facilities are not reserved by one of our athletic teams, outside agencies and community members can make a written request for facility usage with Ms. Cynthia Andrews in the Maintenance Department (404-370-4408). The facilities committee will carefully review these requests. We ask that all requests be submitted in a timely manner. A fee scale has been adopted by the Board of Education that will help us to defray costs.
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Is the “partner agency” Decatur Rec? If so, I hope they figure out a smooth way to coordinate because it makes so much sense for CSD and Decatur Rec to work closely together. They are both funded by Decatur taxpayers and serve the same children and families.
Ha! This is a one way street. CSD uses Rec. fields with complete disregard and used the Rec for Basketball for what 50 years? They kicked the Rec off Winona Park and Westchester fields this year and will not even discuss the possible use of the new 5th Ave. field. Now that they have their own premier facilities they would rather rent them out to colleges than try to work with the city on shared use. What a joke. Where would our school athletics programs be if the Rec banned them from their fields? It still amazes me that in a town this small, they can’t find a way to work together. Request them through the assistant to the facilities director? And, pay a fee? So we can just shift our taxes from one entity to another? Why cant the “athletic directors” sit down and work out some schedules together?
“The football team had a non-losing season” … What the heck does this mean?
Maybe it means that football players read this blog too. Not a group to upset. I once wrote a satire of our football team for our high school newspaper and I was REAL nervous walking the halls for several weeks later!
This letter came to me via the City Schools of Decatur, so the “non-losing season” phrase was not tailored for this blog exclusively.
It means they finished with an even record (in this case five wins and five losses).
So it’s a non-losing, non-winning season!
“Tie season” or “Even record season” seem more non-confusing! 
I don’t know all the details, but this letter seems to be in response to inquiries after some Decatur Rec league lacrosse games got cancelled due soaked field a couple of weeks ago. The girls teams normally practice and play at Ebster, but we had had a couple of days of rain and the field was in no condition to play. Word circulated among girls teams’ parents (I’m one) that the boys rec league teams were allowed to use the DHS field for their games, and the girls’ teams were hoping that we could have that option too.
I can’t tell from Mr Wilson’s letter whether the rumor about the boys’ teams’ use of the DHS field is true or not. It sounds like the field is generally pretty booked up in advance, as I ‘m sure it is. But I don’t think the inquiries had to do with scheduling the field, but rather with access to it — when it’s not already booked, of course — when the regular venue is rained out. I don’t know if that question has been answered, since no response has yet been forwarded to the team parents. This is the first response I’ve seen. Glad I read Decatur Metro. DM: Are you “the community” now? Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
I want to clarify that this conflict did not arise between the Decatur “Rec” and City Schools of Decatur. My understanding is that a parent of one of the children participating in the program contacted Carter Wilson directly and that city staff members have been in contact to educate and inform parents about the scheduling process. We have enjoyed a long partnership with City Schools of Decatur. As one commenter pointed out, the City of Decatur has provided facilities like the recreation center gym, McKoy field and Ebster field to city schools of Decatur sports teams at no charge to the school system for decades. We have no reason to believe that the school system will not continue to work with us now that they have new facilities of their own. In the past, decisions have been made by staff members who did not know about our long-standing partnerships and the access we have provided to school sports teams to our facilities. Carter Wilson has intervened when needed to reverse these decisions. Our staff regularly meets with Carter Wilson and with representatives from the YMCA and Agnes Scott to work out shared facility schedules. Conflicts do occasionally arise but all parties work hard to make the most efficient use of limited facilities and sports fields and to support the programs and activities of each partner whenever possible.
“I want to clarify that this conflict did not arise between the Decatur “Rec” and City Schools of Decatur. My understanding is that a parent of one of the children participating in the program contacted Carter Wilson directly and that city staff members have been in contact to educate and inform parents about the scheduling process. ”
As someone who has some experience with youth sports as a player, parent and coach, I’m shocked — simply SHOCKED* — that it was an overzealous parent that caused a kurfuffle.
(* If by “shocked” I can be understood to mean “not at all surprised.)
In fact, the inquiry came from Rec center coaches — not trying to cause any kurfuffle, or even a bruhaha, for that matter. The inquiry was quite business-like and, though cc’ed to team parents, wasn’t part of a wider “community” discussion until now.
A preseason schedule with the REC in advance of any season’s sport is a must. Bottom line, it’s about the kids!!! Consider also that the REC serves as the farm team for the high school sports programs so DHS has a vested interest and I would think an inherent desire to encourage and look for ways to support the REC with field availability. With field space limited in the city, it is a big issue and an area of major contribution DHS can make to the youth of the city – taxes paid by all come to mind, coupled with proactive stewardship between two city entities – lets work it out there is a lot to be gained by all. Remember the kids!!
I would like to thank Carter Wilson, Gene Ponder, the high school coaches and other staff for working with my staff and I on a daily basis, especially during the last six months when it seemed to rain almost daily. Carter and the school staff are always accomodating, professional and supportive. Staff members Greg White and Stacy Green have personally worked with various school staff members for decades.
We have a good problem to have: Our youth athletics program is popular and ever growing. Youth lacrosse here in Decatur and metro Atlanta exploded a few years ago, has not leveled off, and is still growing at a rapid pace, while our city programs in youth soccer, basketball, and baseball have kept their traditional strong participation numbers, with youth softball on the upswing. I have personally worked very hard to improve the conditions of the turf at our athletic fields so they can better hold up to heavy usage and wet weather, but the monsoon like conditions over the past half a year have taxed the fields heavily.
Anyone who has comments, questions, suggestions, etc., can contact me anytime at 404-391-3244 cell, 678-553-6541 office, or , or Greg White, 678-553-6543 office, . We always welcome your feedback, and we always need more volunteer coaches!
Even with Carter’s explanation – I still don’t see how it would be that difficult to coordinate with the Rec Center for a process for using DHS as rain site. The DHS events that Carter talks about here are on an event schedule, right? They should know when they are occurring and be able to publish the list so that the Rec can know if the field is utilized on a given weekend or not. The letter that was sent says pretty clearly that this kind of “urgent request” is not possible. So when the field is empty and the rec programs are rained out – everyone loses.
The community that supports and pays for that facility is the same community that uses the Rec for their kids. The two organizations should be able to show much more communication and cooperation with each other. The Rec certainly supported DHS for years in their facilities and worked to accommodate the DHS teams shouldn’t the schools do the same?
I don’t know anything about the specifics of this particular weekend’s schedule but I have some problems with Mr Wilson’s comments. He says he has the opportunity to share these facilities – excuse me ? I’d say more like the responsibility to share.
These improvements were sold to taxpayers as a huge benefit to the whole community not just CSD. The bond issue passed more than 2 years ago. Why are we still in the process of developing a plan for facility use ? Why is the DHS athletic department still determining their needs for the facilities ? Wasn’t that assessment done already as part of the master planning to convince us all to vote for the building in the first place ?
If I’d realized we were spending all that taxpayer money on a stadium and a gym so that DHS could have winning basketball teams and a non losing football team, I’d have voted no on that bond referendum.
I agree with Fifi. What we’re seeing here is a lack of communication–between DHS and the Rec teams, and I’ll go so far as suggest that we are also looking at local arts programs who would like to use the performing arts space, but are flummoxed by the high fees. The city really needs to look who their partners are in this–and their fee schedules should reflect reasonable rates that are in line with those partnerships.
We all have a responsibility to maintain our fields, but
Hit the wrong button there …
Basically, Decatur High needs to get their act together and develop a shared field AND performance arts schedule. This summer is approaching, we are looking at a dearth of good fields to play on, and it would seem to be appropriate that a shared schedule could be worked out that would not be expensive. The fees parents pay to participate in Decatur Rec teams could help defray costs of field usage. Perhaps a small fee would be tacked on to teams that would use the field. Heck, we’ve already paid pretty large fees in taxes to build that facility. LETS WORK TOGETHER PEOPLE!