Since the 1980’s, the landscape in athletics throughout Newton has changed dramatically. In the past, most women played two “field” sports, field hockey and softball. With soccer and lacrosse increasing in popularity among female athletes, Newton now has over 1,500 female youth athletes playing these sports (based on data from Newton Parks, Recreation and Culture). These teams require “multi-purpose” fields. Fields that look like rectangles.
What has Newton done to accommodate this surge in female athletes over the decades? Not much. There are not enough rectangle fields that support the sports women play the most, and many of them are shared with baseball or softball, making them unavailable in the Spring.
Using Google maps and the Newton website, I’ve been able to complete a thorough analysis of all of the fields in Newton that are safe for play. There are only seven full sized, dedicated (not shared with another field) “rectangle” fields for the youth athletes that need them. The other seven multi-purpose fields are shared with either softball or baseball, so they are only available in the Fall. The result is that women’s teams are “crammed in” to insufficient field space every year, which reduces practice quality (in some cases three teams share a field) and causes grass fields to be overused, degrading their quality.
It has been almost 50 years since Title Nine (of the Education Amendments Act of 1972) was passed to grant women equal access to athletics and athletic facilities. Why isn’t Newton addressing these challenges?
A common excuse is that “we don’t have the budget” for this. That is not true. There are a number of solutions that Newton can pursue.
- Commit Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds. These funds are designed to be used for a number of focus areas that include athletic fields (including lights and construction of new fields). They have been used sparingly for athletics. According to Newton’s CPC reports, there is over $10M in the CPA reserve waiting to be utilized.
- Charge market-rate rental fees and direct them to field maintenance. Newton’s fee structure falls below every surrounding community.
- Be more supportive of new funding models. For example, Newton has long restricted recognizing “sponsors” for our fields even when there are other cities that have been able to do this tastefully.
It’s time for Newton to “get on the field” and address gender inequity in athletics.
Justin Traxler, President, Newton Girls Soccer, Newton’s largest all female athletic program
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Justin has coached both of his daughters’ soccer teams and is an avid soccer player. He has lived in Newton for over 20 years and has been the president of Newton Girls Soccer since 2017. Most recently, Justin founded the Newton Athletic Fields Foundation, a new organization focused on Newton’s Athletic Fields.
Note: This article has also been published as an opinion piece in the Newton Tab. I received permission from Justin to post it here as well. Paul Levy.
I have four daughters and appreciate the focus here. Everything he says is true but I think the issue extends beyond girls’ sports. The condition of Newton’s fields is abysmal. There is never enough space and they are not kept up. Other towns figure out how to allow teams / leagues to raise funds outside of the city budget but Newton doesn’t actively support this from what I can see. It’s embarrassing to compare us when you go to other towns and see how much they support youth sports. The only nice fields we play on are the ones we rent (from places like Fessenden).
One thing that could be done right away is to give equal priority to boys and girls sports and decide to apportion fields accordingly. If there aren’t enough fields, why should it be the girls’ sports that are left out?
Justin- thanks for the post and bringing up this important issue. Since we are taking about gender equity in girls sports can we touch base on coaching? As a mom of twin girls who were very active in the recreational sports programs in Newton over the years, I was stunned by the lack of female coaching in Newton girls rec sports. As a big believer in putting up or shutting up, I often found myself volunteering to coach. Surprisingly a number of men who served as the commissioner of several Newton girls sports leagues said, “No thanks Brenda, we’re good, Bob/Dan/Ted has been with the organization for years and we are going to keep him right where he is.
Sometimes they would make room and let me serve as the assistant, holding the clipboard and organizing snack. Bless their heart.
I did end up coaching for one year with another Mom and saw first hand that when women coach girls the dynamics are different. And we had a blast.
I am not saying male coaches can’t be effective, of course they can. But representation matters. So sometimes guys- you need to step aside and make room. We need decent fields for our girls to be able to play and develop skills, and we need more women coaching our daughters.
This could be the first post here that I can agree with! Well thought-out and well crafted!
I am wondering if Title 9 has been implemented elsewhere to address this issue? Balanced use (based on demand) should be the goal regardless of the sport or time of year. I would expect it would be a bit complicated, but certainly worthy and mandated by law (I believe).
I think it’s important to note that none of Justin’s ideas would require taking money from other city services. Given that, I’m not sure why there hasn’t been greater enthusiasm from city officials for some or all of them. There are literally thousands of constituents who would benefit from adopting his suggestions.
@Brenda,
I can only speak for Newton Girls Soccer. We are continuing our push to get more women in coaching roles and we have always given a higher priority to women when assigning coaches.
We have just brought in a new volunteer coordinator who will have the objective of increasing participation of women both as coaches and leaders within the organization. There does not appear to be a single “fix this and your problem will go away” reason for low numbers of female coaches. One thing we have done is to bolster our coaches training opportunities so the requirement for prior experience is diminished for the lower age teams.
@Meredeth, The challenge we face broadly with field allocation is in large part due to how the fields are configured. There are many “diamond shaped” fields in the City that cannot be used by any of the field sports that need them. The many fenced Little League fields are an example. These are single sport (single gender) fields.
In other cases, the outfield of a diamond overlaps with the rectangle field. That is the case at Albemarle where the football/soccer field can only be used if both of the overlapping baseball diamonds are not being used.
For many years, Newton has discussed how to permit (reserve) fields by sport and by season. The issue has so far been too complex for any changes to be made resulting mostly in the “this is how we did it last time” approach.
Newton has not been able to do much data analysis on field permits (reservations for the time a field is available for a specific group to use it) and field use (actual hours a group uses the field) due to challenges with the database that is used to track this information. Usage data is not currently tracked. We are working to try and improve the analysis so a more equitable model can be developed.
@Kristin,
You are correct. There are a multitude of issues that all tie into each other. Thus far, the City has been unable to articulate any of these items as part of a plan to address them.
The primary areas the field improvement program is working on includes:
— Increasing maintenance budget so that primary fields are maintained at the proper levels. The current budget is far too small. There is no plan from the city how to increase it to an acceptable level.
— Develop a multi-year plan to re-construct existing fields that are unsafe such as the soccer fields behind Brown Oak Hill that a not nearly close to level. The soccer field at Day MS is really just a flat area with weeds.
— Construct new synthetic turf fields. Synthetic turf will enable more playing time without degrading quality. We tent to over use most grass fields resulting in poor conditions by the end of the season. A synthetic turf field can be used many more hours with the quality going down.
— Look at the few areas in Newton that could be used for new fields. Burr school is one example.
— Install lights at NSHS “Brandeis road” field and NNHS turf field. This will increase turf field use time by 10-15 hours per week in the Fall. That will enable more teams to practice on turf while also allowing the city to better manage the use of grass fields
— Revisit the fee structure and have our fees match market rates. We charge far too little for private companies like SURF Club soccer to use our fields. Given our challenges, I propose that only resident based programs should be able to rent grass fields. The wear and tear on a grass field is not covered by rental fee. The more you use a field, the more maintenance it requires.
For more information, you can read the most recent status report. You will see that there is limited progress on most every project.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SItnCuDNfRpqkejANWopa8Ro-_BESCb/view?usp=sharing
@Brenda I coached for a few years and I agree that there should be a greater number of women-led teams. My experience was that the lack of coaches was also because moms often didn’t sign up. In my last year of coaching I worked with two moms who were much better at this than I ever could be, but neither wanted to be the head coach. So I did it. They helped me learn a lot about coaching girls, but I would have been much happier if one of them had taken the clipboard.
The great thing about the NGS program is that they help you learn the game and learn how to coach. I say this because so often when I talk with parents about coaching their daughters the answer is “well, I’m not great at soccer.” The truth is… so what? You can learn! The whole job is about keeping girls engaged, active, and happy.
But to make sure they’re active and happy, you need a good, safe place for them to play. Dusty fields, uncut grass, pockmarked turf, and swarming mosquitoes (hello Forte Field) make it difficult to keep anyone fully engaged.
Little League stopped being single gender in 1974.
@Tricia. You are correct. There are a few girls who play baseball. One of them is a girl I coached for many years and she is an outstanding baseball player. It is now however a co-ed sport and to my knowledge there is no girls little league program in Newton. So I agree with you factually but in spirit there are sports that are generally played by men in Newton. I have no problem with baseball. I simply want equity for the other athletes.
@Billy. Thank you for your kind words. I am not sure about how Title IX has been used in this aspect, but I can say confidently that the city has shown no legitimate effort to address these issues despite ongoing discussions for years. I am struggling to sort out why they cannot even get a single project lined up.