Youth Teams Squeezed Out of the Game

Twelve-year-old Luis Santos of Van Nuys waited five years to play for a team in the East Valley Trojans Youth Football Club.

This year was going to be his year. He had worked out for a month with his teammates at Valley Plaza Park on Whitsett Avenue to get in shape for his first home game Saturday.

Then, the way he sees it, Van Nuys High School officials pulled the field out from under him, saying the youth football club’s five teams caused too much wear and tear on the grass and attracted noisy fans.

“Football is practically everything to me,” said Luis, who was unable to make it to practices until this season because of his mother’s work schedule.

Luis and his teammates appear to be the latest casualties in a protracted battle between youth sports teams and bureaucracy.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday expanded its April lawsuit contending that the city denied the West Valley Girls Softball League a permit for permanent facilities at city-run parks, while granting boys’ leagues in the same part of the Valley long-term leases at well-groomed fields. The ACLU announced that the lawsuit now includes all girls in the city, saying girls are regularly denied equal access to publicly run sports programs.

Safety Problems Are Cited

So far, problems finding fields have also raised concerns for the Trojans and the West Valley Eagles, two youth football clubs in the San Fernando Valley Youth Conference, league officials said.

The West Valley Eagles lost their home field at Canoga Park High School, but learned Thursday that El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills agreed to allow them to play day games there.

The Trojans were still looking for a home Thursday, though their first preseason game is scheduled Saturday.

In some cases, school officials said they do not oppose youth activities, but ongoing construction makes use of the fields unsafe.

Football club officials said they believed this was the first season youths have been kept off high school fields.

“As far as I know, no school has ever denied youth football the opportunity to use its facilities in the 38 years I’ve been around,” said Thomas Irvine, commissioner of the King Football Conference, which oversees youth football teams in Boyle Heights, Baldwin Hills, Crenshaw, Centennial, Wilshire and Venice.

Conference commissioners intend to discuss ways to help the embattled clubs at their monthly meeting Wednesday, Irvine said. “We are ready, willing and able to give them whatever support they need.”

San Fernando Valley Youth Conference officials are pressing to keep the East Valley Trojans on the fields at Van Nuys and North Hollywood high schools--where youth football teams have been playing for decades--by asking the Los Angeles Unified School District to make the principals comply with the state education code.

Under the law, school districts must allow nonprofit youth organizations to use school grounds and facilities when no alternative site is available.

Youth football officials said that because their practices are held in the early evening, they need the lighted fields at the high school facilities. The youth teams cannot afford rental fees at private facilities, and most city parks don’t have lights or goal posts, officials said.

Ron Fidler, a lawyer for the San Fernando Valley Youth Conference, the governing body that oversees 8,000 boys and girls in youth football, basketball, cheerleading, and track and field clubs, said he has asked school district officials to require principals to comply with the state code.

‘Wear and Tear Is Too Great’

Last week, Fidler asked Kathryn L. Friedman, principal realty agent with the district’s Real Estate and Asset Management Branch, to override the principals’ decisions, citing state law. The assessment management branch administers permit requests from civic organizations seeking to use school facilities.

“It is not the district that is denying the request, “ Fidler said in an interview. “It’s the principals.”

Friedman referred all calls regarding the youth football clubs’ requests to use high school fields to branch Director Bob Niccum.

“Sometimes we do inconvenience groups wanting to use the facilities, but it is something that has to be done in order to keep buildings and grounds properly maintained for their primary use,” Niccum said. “If a field or a building is being refurbished, it can’t be used at the same time. That’s nonsensical.”

In a May 22 memo, Van Nuys High School officials asked Friedman to reject permit requests from civic groups because of damage, noise and traffic jams.

Russ Thompson, principal of Van Nuys High School, said the gridiron is used by physical education classes during the day, school sports teams in the afternoon and by civic groups at night and on the weekends.

“The wear and tear on the field is too great,” he said. “I have to do as much as I can to preserve this facility for our students.”

John Hyland, principal of North Hollywood High School, said that he supports youth sports programs, but that schools and clubs need to strike a compromise.

Hyland said the problem is not with sports teams, but with the condition of the field, which was damaged by heavy winter rains and is only beginning to regenerate.

“I am concerned that there are children out there who need a place to play, and I would like to find the common ground,” Hyland said.

Trojans players like Armando Ruiz, 12, of Sherman Oaks, want the grown-ups to find common ground, too. When he heard he couldn’t play home games at either North Hollywood or Van Nuys stadiums, he wanted to quit the team.

“We would have to play all away games and there would be no homecoming,” he said.

A Question of Supervision

Without a place to play ball, some 300 boys ages 8 to 15 in the East Valley Trojans football club, like Armando, will be left looking for something else to do on weeknights and Saturday afternoons.

The same thing nearly happened to the West Valley Eagles Youth Football Club. The group had been looking for a home field this season for its 300 players, who usually practice and play at Canoga Park High School, said Bill Speer, club president.

Acting Principal Nancy Delgado turned them away, saying open trenches dug for a new air-conditioning system were dangerous, Speer said.

School officials decided to close the campus to all community groups--not just youth football--as a safety precaution during construction, Delgado said.

While classes are in session, school officials are on hand to supervise students walking near work areas, she said. But school officials are not on site on the weekends.

“Our main concern is safety,” Delgado said. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Following a meeting with Speer and Steven L. Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners, El Camino Real High School officials agreed to let the kids play home games at the school.

“It is quite a relief,” Speer said. “We can save the program for 300 kids.”