The Speed Conditioning Performance Youth Soccer Club has been forced to suspend practices and games as the fields the club has been assigned are frequently flooded.
UNION COUNTY — Speed Conditioning Performance Youth Soccer Club President Rodrigo DaSilva and Vice President Steven Valeira have been tireless in their efforts to get the Union County Board of County Commissioners to provide their club access to better fields, but their efforts have not proved fruitful yet.
“The soccer club is a small, nonprofit organization that’s been around for about six years now, and the club doesn’t charge fees for profit, just enough to cover our costs,” Valeira said on Friday, June 11. “In return, we offer professional training and the opportunity for the children to learn how to play the game and excel without having to spend crazy fees. In the surrounding areas that charge, the cost for playing travel soccer could cost between $2,000 and $3,000 per season.
“At SCP Youth Soccer, we try to keep our costs as low as possible to cover our expenses, and, unfortunately, the children of Union County that do play for our club don’t have access to better playing conditions, and we feel it’s because of the political aspect of it,” he continued. “We don’t have any political ties, we don’t kiss any political hands and I think the county parks are controlled by the commissioners now, and it seems like whomever has a hand with the commissioners has a hand in better fields and better playing conditions.”
According to both Valeira and DaSilva, instead of proper, safe, well-maintained fields, they were given access to patches of grass that aren’t acceptable for anyone to play on. The fields are poorly maintained, riddled with trash and completely unusable every time it rains, as they become flooded. The field the club currently plays on is Rutgers Park in Hillside, Monday through Thursday.
“Outside of rain, we’ve got children that are just outside on warm-up runs and hurting themselves,” Valeira said. “I’ve spoken to the county about that. When someone is just jogging, we’ve had children on both boys and girls teams get injured and not finish practice or even start practice because they were just doing a warmup. We’ve had at least five players with short-term injuries.”
DaSilva declined naming specific commissioners but said some of them are tied to certain clubs.
“We should have access such as grammar-school fields, high school fields and so on,” said DaSilva on Friday, June 11. “But there are certain clubs and organizations who have, for example, 12 teams, but they have access to 18 field locations. They’re double-dipping into fields.
“I’m wondering why that is, and, second, we’re not even asking for much,” he continued. “We practice on a field where any little rain, we have to stop. Never mind the New Jersey Youth Soccer Association when we try having games there. It won’t even allow it, because the field takes a dip into the corner. It’s unleveled, unsafe and I think it has to do with where we are in Hillside. Unfortunately, everyone is fighting for space, and people get greedy, instead of working together. Us being a not-for-profit, we get the leftovers. It’s tiring.”
“Union County youth teams are people up to 17 years old. For grass fields, there is no charge,” said Jeanne Strahan, who handles athletic reservations for the Union County Department of Parks and Recreation, on Thursday, June 17. “If it’s a Union County group and it’s on a turf field, it’s $5 for a two-hour time slot. If it’s adults for Union County on a turf field, it’s $40 for a two-hour time slot. If it’s adults for Union County on a grass field, it’s $20 for two hours. For lights, we charge $100 for adults for two hours of lights.”
“We’ve had a permit process for a long time. We have a reservation desk here, and you can also fill out forms online,” Ronald Zuber, director of the Union County Department of Parks and Recreation, said on Thursday, June 17. “Basically, when our fields open up for a season or for a year, people get in touch with us, usually by sending an email and a phone call, and we give the priority to Union County schools, Union County organizations, municipal recreation departments and other organized leagues throughout the county, and they will put their time in.
“For example, a typical scenario may be everyone coming in on Jan. 1 and saying they want everything at Zimmerman Park in Union on Morris Avenue. Six different groups might request 4 p.m. to dusk, depending on what time of the year it is and depending if there’s lights there or not,” he continued. “It’s up to us to sort that out, because sometimes teams take everything … and we have found empty fields. We have heard from a group that would say, ‘Truth is, a Thursday, this field is always empty,’ and we’ll see that a permit was out but the group never showed up because they didn’t schedule practice that night. That’s when we have to start backfilling, and that’s probably one of the most problematic areas that we have.
“Fields don’t want to be lost by these teams and their organizers. They need to do schedules. They want everything, and they can’t get everything,” he added.
DaSilva said parents love the SCP Youth Soccer Club and post positive Google reviews about it, adding that the club also has a branch in Kenilworth, which continues to grow. He said by the time this season ends, there will be 200-250 children in Union County looking for a travel program to better develop their skills.
“We rent our own lights and generators, because there’s no lights provided,” DaSilva said. “The aggravating part is, in Hillside for example, the Hillside pool has a beautiful field next door with four tower lights, and it’s closed. It’s abandoned right now. We’re paying $3,000 to generate the lights, but those fields aren’t being used…. It’s aggravating when you try to give back.… That’s what we’re doing it for, and we’re not giving up on them. But I think a lot of people have given up on us.”
Valeira and DaSilva have tried using a petition to draw attention to their plight.
“When we started this two years ago and did our first petition, it was during election times, and we were asked to take it down,” DaSilva said. “We did, and, in return, we were able to get at least a better playing field and turf time. We thought we were moving in the right direction, but we’ve been ghosted at this point.”
“Ever since we sent the recent letter to the commissioners, it’s no return calls or anything,” said Valeira.
DaSilva said this has stunted the club’s growth, and they don’t know who to turn to anymore. Nevertheless, the duo said they refuse to give up.
Zuber said there is a five-person reservation staff that oversees assigning teams to fields, though he said he also often receives calls.
“It’s our reservation staff that assigns fields,” Zuber said. “I get a lot of calls from groups asking if I can help…. The call should go to the reservation desk, but it does come to me. Everyone likes to call someone they know, and I try to help out as best as I can. Sometimes the answer is, ‘Yes, we do have Tuesday nights,’ and sometimes the answer is, ‘They called me and I told them we don’t have anything, why are they calling you?’ Things like that generally happen.”
Deputy Director of the Union County Office of Public Relations Tina Casey said the Parks Department has an application form for field permits.
“Sometimes, persons requesting a permit call or email the offices, and they are instructed to submit the application form,” said Casey on Thursday, June 17. “No requests are considered until the application form is submitted.”
Outlined step-by-step on the ucnj.org/parks-recreation/athletic-field-use-request website, the field-use request procedure begins with filling out a new Field Request Application in its entirety; submitting the Athletic Request Application to [email protected]; and indicating on the form whether lights are needed. Applications are considered in the order in which they are received. Whether fields are available or not, applicants will be notified via email;, once a field is made available, insurance and field payments are required. Once those are received and processed, a permit is issued via email.
According to Casey, SCP has access to county fields, including the one at Meisel Park. Zumer said that, since Meisel Park is turfed, there is no mud and it handles water well when it rains and floods. He also said there weren’t any injuries at Meisel Park during warm-up sessions of which he was aware. Another possible avenue Zumer mentioned for the group was school turf fields, which sit dormant in some towns.
One of the things Casey said they’re dealing with is the fact that soccer has become more popular. It used to be solely a fall sport, which gave the county a chance to rotate fields and accommodate more teams.
“Now, it’s a spring sport, which is double whammy. We have more teams wanting to use the fields but we also have less time to recover. The turf fields have really been an important factor for us, because the county is crowded and there’s not much space to build brand new fields. When we replace a dirt field with a turf field, it’s almost like creating another field in the same space, because it could be used after rain, during rain, in the winter, for all seasons.”
“Meisel Park is a recently turfed field,” Zumer said. “It’s our only turf field without lights, and it is a multipurpose field. It was generally known as a field that Jonathan Dayton High School used a lot, until they built a turf field on the other side of the park on their property. It’s used a lot and it’s centrally located and a lot of people like to use Meisel Park because it’s easy to get to. It was turfed about three years ago and it’s inside of an eight-lane track. All of our turf fields are built for drainage, so the water has somewhere to go and you can play at different times of the year, as you would be able to with grass.”
DaSilva and Valeira insist they have had no success in their efforts to contact the county.
“We’ve reached out numerous times for the past five to six weeks. I’ve personally reached out to Commissioner Sergio Granados, and I was told (my request) was being worked on,” DaSilva said. “Until today, I can’t get anyone to call me back and confirm if that’s true or not. We start our season in the fall, so we’re finishing now, and we’ve registered for leagues that we need to tell them ahead of time that we have access to fields to play our games. Right now, we’re in the dark. I can’t tell parents if we’re going to have a season if I don’t know if we’re going to have certain fields.… This is aggravating and it’s tiring. We want fair play.”
“Every time we speak to someone regarding fields, we’re always told the same thing: Did you send in an application? Did you apply for the field? Our response is always, Yes. Every time we apply for a field, it’s always denied for no reason,” Valeira said. “We just ask to sit down with someone, look at all the fields, the scheduling and find a space that we can practice and not a patch of grass that has been given to us somewhere.… We are asking to sit down and come to an agreement that works for all parties.”
Zumer said the county plans to remedy the competition for space and address the next step after a team continues to apply for fields and is continually denied. He said most of the permit holders are nonprofit groups or are affiliated with the Board of Education or Recreation Department, or are for-profit camps and tournaments.
“I say this a lot when we talk to different groups. Union County is the third-densest county in the densest state,” Zumer said. “We are trying our best to remedy this, but in a lot of places, you can’t put turf fields. The remedy is putting money aside every year and trying to find a place for another turf field that won’t flood. It’s a goal. We’re also replacing turf for a lot of these fields, and that’s an expense, too, because you’ve got different year-round sports on the turf and it wears and tears, so we’re also replacing and repairing turf fields.
He pointed out that, as a government operation, the county does no favors to itself by turning people down. Zumer said they try to accommodate everyone, but when people get denied or don’t get the full schedule they want, they have to keep an eye open to see if someone cancels or isn’t showing up to the field. Then the county can backfill it with the people who are looking for space. That can come about with a phone call or an email to him, as it doesn’t do anyone any good if the fields are empty and people are sitting at home wanting to play soccer that night. On a typical night, starting this time of year, he said everything is full with a variety of sports.
“The county Recreation Department is not here to make money,” said Zumer. “Our goal is to make sure that everyone is playing safely and get their programs running. We try to accommodate all, whether they are for profit or nonprofit. It isn’t relevant to us. Recreation and schools come first, and then youth groups from within the city.”