Vero Beach prideful, but Livings field among worst for soccer on Treasure Coast | Opinion

“Pride” often is part of the lexicon in Vero Beach and its high school.

The high school band has called itself the “Pride of the Treasure Coast.”

The school honored its top 10% of students in a ceremony called “Pride of the Tribe.”

Then there’s the longtime phrase at the school: “It’s great to be a Fighting Indian.”

I’ve got news for you:

It’s not great to play these days on Billy Livings Field in the Citrus Bowl.

A slope and drain sit at the edge of the playing surface near midfield and the stadium's track Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, at Vero Beach High School's Citrus Bowl.
A slope and drain sit at the edge of the playing surface near midfield and the stadium's track Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, at Vero Beach High School's Citrus Bowl.

If local leaders had any pride in providing a safe playing surface for young men and women, the field wouldn’t have been in as lousy shape as it was earlier this month when I officiated a girls soccer game there.

It should be an embarrassment to the high school and a greater community that, often for good reason, takes such pride in itself.

It was perhaps the most potentially dangerous field I've seen the past two years officiating high school soccer on the Treasure Coast.

It was worse than almost any middle school field I’ve been to.

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Problem compounded by track

Holes and slopes on the field of the Vero Beach High School Citrus Bowl are shown covered Jan. 21, 2022, before a girls soccer match. The work was done after TCPalm columnist Laurence Reisman asked school officials about dangerous problems found at the field during a girls game Jan. 13, 2022.
Holes and slopes on the field of the Vero Beach High School Citrus Bowl are shown covered Jan. 21, 2022, before a girls soccer match. The work was done after TCPalm columnist Laurence Reisman asked school officials about dangerous problems found at the field during a girls game Jan. 13, 2022.

It was an insult to the name of Livings, who coached Indian River County’s only state championship football team in 1981 and served as its athletic director for 26 years.

I could not believe what I saw.

It was one thing to see parts of the field badly torn up — I played soccer in high school sometimes partly on dirt or clay baseball infields. That's not the norm nowadays.

It was another to see the field lined not only for soccer, but for football. Twice in our game players used the wrong lines.

But what always has been scary during soccer games at the Citrus Bowl are the touch, or side, lines, about where a side referee must run and where players often run.

Because the old, beaten-up track around the field is unusually small — so small compared to regulations the school hasn't held a home meet in years — there’s not much room between it and the touch line. Years ago the small area was so chewed up by football teams, VBHS pinned down strips of artificial grass to cover up the uneven dirt.

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Imagine stepping on a drain grate

Those strips are gone, but drainage grates are there, making running with sloping, washed out grass and dirt, treacherous.

I can’t tell you how many players I’ve seen over the years get carried onto the track by their momentum, only to slip on their cleats and fall.

One player the other night was not so lucky. She went off the field, stepped on a drainage grate and tweaked her ankle. She left the game, but returned later.

I was lucky. I could occasionally run on the hard track — with sneakers. Other times I’d have to go onto the field to get closer to play, often getting bogged down in the wet grass even though it had not rained since the day before.

It was so bad I wondered whether we should have even played the game. It wasn’t my call, but if we hadn’t played, who would have suffered? The students.

Such a postponement was discussed before a regional final football game in 2019, according to Lenny Jankowski, the high school’s football coach and athletic director since 2011.

With freshman, junior varsity and varsity football teams playing on the often-wet surface that fall, it was badly beaten up by the time Deerfield Beach coaches and an out-of-area referee crew questioned it Nov. 22, 2019, before the regional final.

“They (Deerfield Beach) came from two hours away,” Jankowski said, citing the importance of the game, with 5,000 to 6,000 people expected to attend. Ultimately, the decision was made to play.

“There are certain places where we cannot get the water out of it,” he said. “I think it’s the poster child for (artificial) turf.”

It’s hard to fathom the number of major football, soccer and lacrosse contests that have been played in recent years on the field featuring Division I and II prospects. Would one awkward fall end someone’s scholarship dreams?

The unusually small track compounds the issue of a soccer field.

“It’s just tough … It’s been a thorn in my side my whole time here,” said Jankowski, noting, after I contacted school officials, crews added dirt to the field before Friday night's girls soccer game.

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New track, field at Graves complex?

Meantime, Jankowski has supported a proposal to build a separate artificial surface field for soccer and lacrosse, surrounded by a regulation-size track.

That project, potentially made possible by the Jimmy Graves Foundation’s donation to the school district of 11.7 acres to the west of the Citrus Bowl, would be built through a community partnership, including private fundraising.

Cindy Emerson, director of instructional innovation for the district, said she hopes a committee can finalize a design for the complex soon and start raising $4 million for the first phase, the track and field, in the fall. Other interesting ideas, such as an "inclusion" park and historic walking trail, have been suggested for east side of the property.

To me, continued degradation of the Citrus Bowl’s playing surfaces makes completing the Graves track and field a priority. Private philanthropy, perhaps along with grants from local governments and community fundraisers, should contribute to the project.

Most importantly, such a new community recreation hub for the southern side of downtown must be open to the public. Sadly, Indian River County has fenced off its schools to keep the public off the fields taxes pay to maintain. That's not the case in many other communities, such as at Jupiter High School and where I grew up in New York.

Vero Beach architect Chris Crawford released this conceptual rendering Jan. 21, 2022, of what an artificial surface track and field might look like at the Jimmy Graves complex west of the Citrus Bowl at 16th Street and 20th Avenue, across from Vero Beach High School. A fundraising effort is expected to get underway later this year to help fund these and other improvements.

Some questions that must be answered: Should the district operate and maintain the track and field? What assurances would there be to maintain it properly and preserve public access in perpetuity? Should a community nonprofit manage the facility?

Personally, I’m fine with the school’s soccer teams continuing to occasionally play on good fields at the nonprofit Hobart Soccer Complex. The reality, though, is most every other high school soccer team on the Treasure Coast plays on its campus. The best fields I’ve seen this year are in Fort Pierce and Okeechobee.

Don’t our youngsters — in such a giving, caring community — deserve better?

This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Support his work by subscribing to TCPalm. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Here's another reason why Vero Beach High needs track, field | Opinion