KP Wastewater Issues Prompts Stadium Turf Discussion

The King Philip School District’s have further limited the fields available to the high school’s athletic and music departments.

The proposed fix for the wastewater plant problem would use the practice field as a leaching field.

District Business Manager Paul Schaefer said he had been working to shuffle around school activities.

“It’s amazing what you can and cannot do with a practice field,” he said. “It’s affected all of the activities of the school, not just football.”

Schaefer said work on the system has been further delayed by the town Board of Health.

“We asked if we would be allowed to do things we believed they would approve,” he said. “We were told, ‘Do so at your own peril.’”

Athletic Director Steve Schairer said the school’s football teams would be practicing at the town American Legion field.

“It’s a full field in terms of size and width, but it’s not level,” he said. “It’s not exactly a great situation, but it’s the best we could do.”

Schairer, though, said there were additional costs to the move, including light replacement and busing.

“We shuttle the boys and girls soccer teams to practice, but we don’t pick them up — parents bring them home,” he said, adding that football’s additional equipment makes such a solution unfeasible. “The buses that bring them there and back cost about $200 a day.”

He said he was doing his best to preserve the stadium field.

“I made an announcement this year that no one could practice on it,” he said. “None of the coaches liked it — they want to practice on the field they play on.”

Schairer said that the field would see too much activity otherwise.

“Right now, we’ve played six to seven soccer games on it and two football games. There’s a band preview show this weekend — that’s all that’s been on it since the beginning of school,” he said. “The field gets pretty torn up during the preview shows.”

According to Schairer, the MIAA ruled that the field was unsuitable for last year’s lacrosse tournament.

“If the lacrosse teams made the tournament, they would not have any home games, even if they were the number one seed,” he said.

Committee members asked if an articifial field had been considered. Schaefer said he would be meeting with a field engineer within two weeks.

Schairer said such a move would ameliorate a recurring problem.

“This is my fifth year as athletic director,” he said. “We have the exact same problem every fall. We do the same thing over and over, and it’s not getting us anywhere.”

Members asked if player safety, but Schairer said he did not believe it would be an issue.

“There isn’t any research I’m aware of that shows more injuries on turf than grass,” he said. “We had a major blowout of a knee on our grass field the other night.”

Committee member Michael Gee asked why other schools don’t have similar problems.

Schairer said usage was the factor.

“Not every school has all its groups using the same field,” he said. “We really only have one game stadium field.”