Marysville-Yuba City High School Soccer Without A Home Field At Geweke Field
Courtesy of the Appeal-Democrat
Written by Nathan D. Collier
October 11, 2005
For the first time in five years, the Yuba City High boys soccer team is not playing its home games at Geweke Field in Yuba City.
The Wheeler Auto Group Soccer Complex at Beckwourth Riverfront Park in Marysville has become the Honkers' home away from home because Geweke Field has been deemed ”unplayable“ by coach Paul Shank.
”We held a camp at Geweke at the end of July and had a number of players turning their ankles on the field,“ said Shank. ”Then we started practice for the high school season and almost immediately had three guys on the bench with injuries.“
By all reports, the current condition of the field happened, not because of neglect or a failure to do work on the field, but because of the huge amount of use at the site.
”That field has just gotten so much use,“ said Brad McIntire, the former athletics director of Yuba City High and the current recreation manager for the Yuba City Parks and Recreation Department. ”Normally a field like that would be able to recover in the spring rain season, but that's right in the middle of girls soccer, so it never gets time to recover.“
Geweke Field opened in February 2000 as a joint venture between the school district and the city.
The city has been in charge of maintenance to this point, but the school district has agreed to take over that responsibility and will oversee and finance any renovation work done at the field.
Two options are being considering to fix Geweke Field, said Baldev Johal, Deputy Superintendent for the school district.
The first is to strip the field bare and then sod it with a Bermuda-hybrid grass. The hybrid is stronger than the current sports blend - a mixture of eight different types of rye and bluegrass. Bermuda is the same kind of grass that currently covers the Honker Stadium field and the Winship Field infield. Installation at Geweke would cost between $50,000 and $75,000, Johal said.
Because Bermuda goes dormant in the winter, a project to install this type of grass wouldn't start until the spring, meaning the Yuba City girls soccer program would likely be displaced for part or all of its spring season.
Option two would cost significantly less, around $10,500, according to Steve Plaxco, the head of maintenance for the school district.
It involves an overseeing process to re-establish the sports blend already planted, along with work to level out the bumps in the turf.
Plaxco added that the process would take about three months, meaning the field would be ready for play in late January or early February of 2006.
”Now that the field has had a month or two to rest, you can see the grass seems to be coming back,“ said Plaxco. ”It needs work, but if we come in afterward with an aggressive maintenance schedule, maybe we can keep it in good shape.“
Whatever is done to resurface the field, Plaxco said it will cost the district $44,900 per year for watering, mowing, monthly aeration, and quarterly overseeing and fertilizing on top of any work done this fall to bring the field back to playing standards.
It's those costs, along with similar maintenance costs at Honker Stadium and any future facilities at River Valley High School, that have some saying the best solution is an artificial surface at Honker Stadium.
”In my opinion, that's the best way for the district to get the most bang for its buck,“ said McIntire. ”You've now got six football teams and the turf would add the ability to play soccer there, meaning you could add six boys and six girls teams for a total of 18 teams that could play on that surface.“
Shank agrees: ”Those turf fields are basically maintenance-free for up to 15 years,“ Shank said, ”and here we are not even playing at Geweke.“
Plaxco said the city has no specific plans to install an artificial field, which would cost somewhere around $500,000, but he has contacted Roseville school district officials about the artificial surface at their facility.
Companies that make modern artificial turf - AstroPlay®, Fieldturf and Sprinturf among them - some claim their fields last up to 15 years before needing replacement.
Using Plaxco's numbers, the cost to maintain Geweke Field for 15 years is $673,500, taking some of the sticker shock out of the half-million dollar price tag attached to an artificial surface.
”It makes financial sense to have the AstroTurf® ,“ Shank said. ”You could have other leagues there, or you could even rent the field out for other uses. It's something that would benefit the whole community.“
The city of Marysville is charging $500 for use of the riverfront fields.
”That's actually a pretty minimal fee,“ said Yuba City athletics director Chris Yonge. ”The fields at the river bottoms are in awesome shape.“
