Coaches Wage Turf War Over Playing Fields : Sports: It’s football versus soccer coaches in a tussle over limited space for youth teams in Encinitas. Both say the city needs more parks.

There’s a war being waged on the suburban playing fields of Encinitas where two football and soccer youth leagues are squaring off in an all-out turf battle over a shrinking number of available playing spaces.

So far, it’s been a bloodless conflict that has nonetheless featured its share of physical clashes and verbal volleys. But it’s not the often high-strung school kids who are doing the fighting. It’s their coaches and league officials.

Last fall--as dozens of youths looked on--coaches from the San Dieguito Pop Warner football league and Encinitas Soccer Club scuffled in the parking lot of an Encinitas junior high school after both groups showed up to claim the field.

Recently, the Encinitas Union Elementary School District voted to return application fees to both leagues--and reconsider its playing field reservations policy--after a second misunderstanding arose over use of an elementary school for their respective seasons, which begin at summer’s end.

Now frustrated coaches and officials have been left to point fingers not only at each other, but at what they call undecided school administrators and at a city where available parks and playing space for youth sports have become a truly precious commodity.

Both sides, however, do agree on one thing. The players, they acknowledge, are the eventual losers in the continuing imbroglio of bad blood, accusations and--some say--lack of sportsmanship.

“The message our kids are getting is that people can get away with being bullies,” said Carmelo Rodriguez, an assistant soccer coach who was reportedly pushed to the ground in last fall’s scuffle, and eventually forced to take his team to a small city park to practice.

“It’s ironic. It happened at the same time our President said he was going to fight Saddam Hussein for being a bully. Every once in a while you run across bullies.”

Countered John Ramuno, a board member of the San Dieguito Pop Warner football league: “I’m a volunteer, not a professional coach. I just don’t have time to deal with this kind of thing.”

Mary Jo Nortman, a trustee for the Encinitas Union Elementary School District--which makes decisions on the use of the city’s four elementary schools--says school officials are siding with neither group.

“Football people are just different than soccer people. Maybe it’s the old gridiron attitude, ‘We’re tough, we’re the best.’ I just chuckle. It’s just too bad that a group of adults can’t look at each other with a little more understanding.”

Despite efforts on behalf of school officials to mitigate the leagues’ differences, soccer officials say it’s impossible “to co-mingle” because leagues with older players need an entire field to practice and play.

“The soccer people insist they need the entire field,” said Ramuno, whose 250-member football league includes teen-agers from several North County cities.

“Soccer is basically a no-brainer. They just run around. We can get lots of kids on a field. We’re not asking for any special treatment. Just half a field and a pair of goal posts. But they won’t go for that.”

For years, various leagues in Encinitas and other neighboring cities have arranged to use elementary, junior high and high school playing fields after school hours--in recent years at fees ranging in the thousands of dollars.

Now, however, with at least one of the seven available schools in Encinitas closed for repairs--and with the ranks of various leagues steadily growing--this fall is shaping up to be one of the most crowded playing seasons yet.

“The bottom line is that there are just not enough places to play,” said Scott Pogue, president of the 1,600-member soccer club, whose 106 teams feature players ranging in age from 5 to 18.

Encinitas city officials admit they have their hands tied.

“The city is very aware of the need for more playing fields,” said Dave Wigginton, the city’s director of community services. “But we’ve only been a city for five years. This kind of development takes time.”

While the city has completed one new park in Cardiff and has two more on the drawing boards--one near a mid-town YMCA, the other on a former county landfill site--Wigginton said the defeat of Proposition A in 1989 at the hands of voters lent a severe blow to after-school sports in the community.

The initiative would have designated $25 million to acquire and develop parklands throughout the city.

“They had their golden opportunity,” Wigginton said. “Now we’re stuck with doing what we can without that $25 million. And the people in these leagues are seeing the results.”

The most recent battle site is a stretch of three grassy fields behind the tiny Park Dale Lane Elementary School--where both leagues have claimed domain for their upcoming practices and league seasons.

Despite a policy that precluded teams from applying for field use more than 30 days prior to the start of a season, leagues for years have been allowed to reserve fields months in advance to assist in their scheduling, said Gene Frederick, director of facilities for the Encinitas Union Elementary School District.

“I was being flexible to the youth organizations,” he said. “But I broke policy and now I’m getting hit over the head. I’m not a parks and recreation director.”

Earlier this month, the soccer club appealed to school board trustees--claiming a 15-year long tenancy of the playing fields--after the football league successfully reserved the playing area for the fall season.

Soccer officials claimed they should have first crack at the field since their league features only local players, and that the football league has players from several surrounding cities.

But in a surprise to both leagues, the trustees voted to deny either league’s application for the elementary school field and return the sign-up fees to both groups. Meanwhile, trustees said they would firm up their policy on reservations for the four elementary schools it oversees. Three other schools--two junior highs and a high school--used by the after-school leagues are the responsibility of the San Dieguito High School District.

“It gets pretty cutthroat,” said Frederick. “But this could happen in any city without adequate park space. Some of these leagues aren’t willing to negotiate anything they don’t want.”

Some tempers are still raw from an event last fall in which coaches from both leagues squared off in a junior high school parking lot. The way both sides tell it, there was an oversight at the school office that allowed both leagues to reserve the field.

For several evenings in a row, both showed up as a school football team finished its afternoon practice--each rushing to take its position first.

Soccer team parent Dave Ahlgren recalled receiving a call from Rodriguez--an assistant soccer coach--about growing tensions. “He said it wasn’t much fun to go up there. I said ‘I’ll go up with you.’ They’re not that tough. I’ll just call the cops--use the system--if anything happens.”

Finally, Rodriquez was reportedly pushed to the ground during an incident in which soccer officials challenged football coaches to show their paperwork proving they had rented the field.

“They used foul language and made snide remarks after we tried to show them our paperwork,” he recalled. “Then they physically removed us.”

Ramuno acknowledges there was finger-pointing going on. But he insists that Rodriguez must have slipped and was not forced to the ground. “Maybe one of his kids got behind him,” he said. “He was not hit.”

Ramuno says both leagues--as well as a second Encinitas soccer league--planned to meet in the near future to work out a lottery system for the coming fall.

Meanwhile, both football and soccer officials will keep a wary eye on each other--as their teams wait for more park space on which to practice and play.

“I guess the football people feel they’ve always had a second seat because soccer and Little League (baseball) have always attracted most of the kids,” said soccer club president Pogue. “Maybe they feel like they’re not getting their fair share of the attention.”

Added Ramuno: “Whatever happens, the message we’re putting out isn’t real positive for either league.”