Kicked Out : Neighbors Persuade District to Block Soccer Games

Every Sunday they came by the thousands to Norwalk, these adult soccer players who would spend a few hours running in the sun as their friends, wives and children looked on.

But some residents who live near the fields considered the games a weekly curse. They said the players and spectators were rude and lewd, besieging residents in their own neighborhoods.

For now, the foes of soccer have won the field. They persuaded the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District to suspend the games. The district is developing new rules for the use of its fields, and the school board will review policies Monday that could either permit the games on school grounds again or banish them for good.

On one side are soccer players and league officials who say the suspension are unwarranted and the complaints are exaggerated. “We clean the bathrooms, parking spaces and school grounds,” said Miguel Cuevas, president of the Norwalk-Artesia Soccer League. “If the board has any reports from janitors, we would like to see them.”

On the other side are angry residents who say they are tired of having hundreds of players and fans fill their neighborhoods all day Sunday, of seeing players change clothes, drink alcohol, urinate in public and leave trash behind, among other transgressions.

“My wife comes home from the First Baptist Church (Sunday morning) and witnesses urination and drinking,” resident Harold Ciesa told board members at a recent meeting. “Anything less than (a ban) is totally unacceptable.”

Soccer opponents have threatened to sue the district if it allows adult soccer to resume. On Oct. 7, more than 80 residents who live near Norwalk High School signed a petition demanding a halt to adult soccer on those fields. On Oct. 21, the district received a similar petition with 36 signatures from residents who live near the Excelsior School fields.

“We’ve had problems with intoxicated fans and players making lewd and crude remarks at our wives and daughters, and in a very clumsy, inept, asinine way actually trying to make passes at them,” said Stephen Wood, an informal spokesman for the Excelsior neighbors.

“We’ve had people coming into our lawns, facing into our lawns, and urinating in broad daylight. Players entering vans with their girlfriends and throwing used condoms onto the pavement.”

Wood’s teen-age daughter told the board that the soccer players and fans made her nervous and scared to walk the streets in front of her home on Sundays.

But soccer booster Gustavo Cuevas, speaking at the same meeting, said at least some of the unhappy residents were more anti-Latino than anti-soccer. League officials said nearly all of the soccer players are Latino.

“These people are calling the police each time a Mexican boy walks on the school grounds. . . . You cannot stop a sport just because it’s Mexicans,” said Cuevas, who is the brother of the league president.

“These people don’t want to resolve the problem,” league President Miguel Cuevas said. “Hispanics are 70% of the people of Norwalk. All we ask is permission to use the parks, which is our right. We have to do something on Sundays.”

School officials, caught in the middle, are quick to assert that no group has an innate right to use its fields. “It’s a privilege,” Deputy Supt. Howard Rainey said. “This school district is not in the recreation business, and we should not be in the recreation business. . . . We don’t have time to do that.”

Rules being considered include limiting the season of play, which currently runs almost year-round, prohibiting the teams from parking outside of school lots, raising insurance and security levels and requiring the person who signs for the field to be present at all games.

Some proposed rules, such as forbidding adult league play on Sunday, would have the same effect as a ban. Three different leagues and thousands of players were using school district fields on Sundays before the suspension of play in December.

Soccer league officials are still holding games at a handful of fields in Whittier, Santa Fe Springs and Cerritos, but they said the Norwalk school grounds are badly needed. The Norwalk-Artesia league alone has more than 1,500 players. Their fear is that Norwalk will join the list of school districts and cities that have banned the games. Long Beach Unified banned adult soccer from its fields last July, citing the same kinds of problems as Norwalk residents. Paramount does not allow soccer leagues either.

The city of Norwalk, which still permits soccer but has only one field, is turning down requests from soccer leagues all over the region. Recreation Supervisor Dave Verhaaf said he does not have enough space to accommodate all the requests from local teams.

Moreover, Norwalk’s field has been closed since December for turf repair. Some officials oppose the soccer leagues primarily because the games rapidly destroy the grass.

Verhaaf also said he has had problems with players and fans, but nothing that could not be corrected. “They’re trying to make an effort,” he said of league officials.

He said he also sees the problem as partly cultural, and said that it is vital for the leagues to teach and police their players and fans so they learn what is permissible in and around a city park or school yard.

The city of Long Beach, which allows adult soccer, has resolved problems by threatening to take away permits, sports supervisor John Costello said. “There is occasionally a bad apple, but in large part--no. A lot of their families will come and watch the play. It’s a picnic day. It goes beyond being a soccer game.”