The following letter was sent to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the Oak Bluffs planning board.
The following letter was sent to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the Oak Bluffs planning board.
Thanks for the chance to share my opinion about the effort to install a synthetic playing field at MVRHS.
I am a lifelong sports fan, a frustrated former athlete and the father of a boy who became a successful college soccer player. I think I understand the appeal of a turf field: useable in any weather, easy to maintain, more predictable performance (i.e. truer bounces, more consistent footing).
The point has been made that our Vineyard athletes are at a competitive disadvantage to kids at schools that have turf fields. I would argue that the skills of soccer players and field hockey players, for example, can actually be accelerated by playing on grass: you become quicker when you don’t know precisely how the ball will bounce.
I also think there are serious financial and environmental drawbacks to the proposed project. Even before the pandemic made economic inequality in this country even more obvious, it seemed unnecessarily extravagant to spend money on something that is not a necessity and that benefits only a small subset of the wider school and Island population. And it’s hard for me to find a rationale for using anything made of plastic when a natural alternative is available.
Whit Griswold
West Tisbury
Comments
I don't have a dog in this
Cynthia OHara EdgartownI don't have a dog in this fight but I must correct an error in this letter. Field hockey is a sport that has been played on artificial turf on the collegiate and elite level for over 20 years. Grass is no substitute if collegiate field hockey at an elite institution is one's aspiration. Soccer is the opposite. Top soccer games are always played on grass; one of the things our women's national team has been fighting for is to play all games on grass, like the men.
Cynthia is correct. Field
Islander61 OBCynthia is correct. Field hockey at any advanced level is played on artificial turf. But let's also be clear, soccer at the highest levels would like to play on grass but I will point out, they do not want to play on grass fields that high schools can maintain. The college and national level fields are no comparison to what high schools in the Northeast can produce. The budgets and manpower at the college and national level fields have is no where close to what high schools have access to, that is why high schools are going to turf fields. In addition, at the college and national levels they don't have football, soccer, field hockey and lacrosse all playing on the same field. Colleges and national level sports teams have the luxury of only playing soccer on those fields and, at most, two teams using them, a men's team and women's team. They are not playing multi-levels of several different sports programs, like high schools are forced to do on the same field. This is an overuse issue of the fields at the high school level. High schools don't have the budgets, manpower, or space to have fields only used by one sport one time per year, like colleges and national level sports do. IF you compare college level fields, national level fields or professional sports teams fields to what high schools can produce and maintain you are not comparing apples to apples. If you survey professional athletes, like the NFLPA as reference by people here, they may say they would prefer to play on grass but I will guarantee you they are not talking about grass fields that high schools in the Northeast can maintain, while sharing it with 5 other programs, heck, they don't even practice on their game fields. They all have practice facilities to avoid overusing their game fields. Apples to apples.
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