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Neil Hernandez, publisher of lanetechfan.com, brought up a good point in response to the problems with the CPS Sports Administration's lack of attention to boys and girls soccer in Chicago.
"The current CPS staff did not create the current situation," said Hernandez in a comment posted last week. "But they are given the unenviable task of fixing the situation."
But as I've said time and time again, there hasn't been any fixing in the last seven years that I've seen. If it wasn't for the Chicago Park District adding a turf field at Montrose Park and ComEd donating the lights that would be one less field CPS would have.
You may recall something I brought up last September in regards to the new field turf at Lane Stadium. Here was an opportunity for CPS to do something good, and guess what - they blew it again. Not only is the field only 55 yards wide for soccer, when it could've easily been 70 yards wide, they didn't even mark the field correctly for soccer. On the east side of the field, they forgot to add a sideline for soccer.
Don't believe me? Go look for yourself. This is the second in series of reports looking at CPS soccer.
I understand a number of CPS schools are landlocked - just as the case is with a number of suburban schools.
Where is the plan to address the soccer facility problem in CPS? Who is the leader or is this just CPS at its best?
People can sit, point fingers and blame everyone and everything else for this problem. But folks, this is the 21st century. You have a sports administration office, which is in charge of the largest conference (Public League) in the state, and it can't even figure out how to line a soccer field correctly.
Are you kidding me?
Why hasn't the CPS Sports Administration office under the direction of Calvin Davis and soccer administrator Juan Espinoza taken advantage of grants from U.S. Soccer?
According to the U.S. Soccer Federation, CPS has never applied for one.
Amazing.
Where is the plan and who is in charge?
- Joe Trost
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Comments
I just have a couple comments regarding facilities in the Public League.
Although, I am a Lane alumni and one of the biggest Lane Tech fans (publiser of www.LaneTechFan.com) I applaud the results of Lane's biggest sports rival Whitney Young. More specifically the efforts put fourth by Dr. Joyce Kenner principal of Whitney Young.
Whitney Young is school that is as land locked as you could get. The school is about 1.5 miles west of downtown Chicago in an area with obviously no more space for fields. Whitney Young has very little outdoor athletic fields for it's teams to practice and play games. Their football team has to play home games in Hanson stadium, which is about 5 miles northwest of the school. Whitney Young also has no outdoor track to practice on. Yet, despite the lack of facilities Whitney Young has made great strides in their athletic programs. Everyone knows about their basketball teams but do you know that their boys volleybal team made it to the state final 8 and that their baseball team made it to the state super sectionals last year? These are feats that have never been done by a Chicago Public School.
My point in mentioning this is that, despite a lack of facilities, Whitney Young is still thriving and is very competitive in certain sports against state competion. I attribute that to the leadership of Dr. Kenner.
I don't know exactly what Dr. Kenner is doing, but I do know that whatever she is doing works and can be a great model for other Public Leauge schools.
To the athletic directors, coaches, and players at Public League soccer schools. The CPS controls where you play your soccer games but you have a control of:
1)Organizing and improving freshman and sophmore level soccer programs at your school.
2) Recruiting athletes for freshman level soccer programs.
3) Attending coaching clinics, reading books, and improving your overall soccer coaching.
4)Raising the team spirit of your soccer team.
5)Create better fundraising for better soccer equipment
6)Building relationships with you soccer players parents and family for greater support.
7)Voicing your opinion to demand greater facilities.
8) Dozens of other things you can think of to improve your program WITHOUT the CPS approval.
In short, we can all take massive action to improve our soccer programs that have nothing to do with the CPS.
At Lane we were able to finally get field turf for our stadium. Last fall we played our first ever soccer game there. But before we even got the new field, our players, coahces, fans and parents did all the above steps and more very well. My point is Lane had a very good soccer program BEFORE we got the facilities.
Is it hard to do? Yes.
Are there obstacles? Yes.
But the question everyone has to ask themselves is: Is it worth it? To me the answer is an astounding yes!!!
Whitney Young and Lane Tech have proven they can make it happen in the Public League. I challenge the rest of the schools to step up and make it happen at their school!!
---Neil Hernandez
Publisher
www.LaneTechFan.com
Posted by: Neil Hernandez | January 28, 2008 9:26 PM