Berkeley Athletics Thrive Despite Outdated Athletic Facilities
If you happen to venture into the old gym after a rainy day, you are likely to have to sidestep a puddle or two before you can even get to the other end. This severely inhibits ways in which physical education teachers like Allison Smith can teach their students. “It is nearly impossible to teach my classes when the roof leaks in the gyms. I have nowhere to go when it rains, so I am forced to take my classes inside a gym where we have to play around huge puddles,” said Smith.
She also expressed difficulty in being able to consistently sustain a schedule, explaining, “I have a specific progression and outline for coursework during the semester. Often I have to do something completely different because the facilities are not mopped or cleaned. My classes, ranging from forty to fifty students, have to squeeze into one small gym and play around puddles.”
However, athletic director Bill Gaebler feels good progress is being made, as parts of the roof have been tarped over, and “the gym has had new lights put in and the graffiti painted over.” He also points out that “the old gym is currently slated for demolition in the summer of 2011, so no new money will be spent on longterm repair, [but] should the situation change, adjustments would be made towards maintenance and repair.”
Smith still feels this is not nearly enough, and that her department is being overlooked by the administration. “The school needs to make the physical education teaching spaces a priority and the old gym functional again.” She acknowledged that “they are trying to fix it, but I still have to teach around dirt and trash.” Smith said that “[Some] students are dropping PE classes because of the unhealthy conditions of the old gym.”
Smith is not the only one having to work around issues with spacing. Matt Bremer and the Berkeley High varsity baseball team have to deal with dilapidated baseball fields like the one at Willard Middle School, and their home field, San Pablo Park. The baseball team has been trying to get a place of their own for a very long time, and they finally have something at the field at the on Derby Street. “But this would involve many changes that the City of Berkeley and the taxpayers would have to agree on,” Gaebler said, explaining that this project would likely take at least five years. Bremer also agrees with the assumption that the field won’t be quickly acquired, pointing out that “the park has been a bone of contention between the neighbors there and the school district for years.”
Bremer thinks that “the biggest problem they have with the lack of facilities is that we can’t have enough practice time, and with better facilities, we could have a better team by being able to practice more, and have more days on the field out there playing.”
But Bremer is optimistic about what he has. “If you just do the right drills, you can still make it work,” and notes that “San Pablo Park is the same field for both teams, so hopefully we can use the park’s [disadvantages] to our own advantage [when playing teams unfamiliar with the territory]. While it would be nice to have more field practice time, I feel we still have a strong chance to win NCS this year.”
Even with these problems, Gaebler contends that Berkeley High School is doing remarkably well in the athletic arena. “For being a 130-year-old urban high school set directly in the middle of commercial downtown Berkeley, itself a confined space, we do remarkably well to field more sports programs than any public high school west of the Mississippi River and even more sports programs than our neighboring university on our limited acreage.”
Gaebler continued, “Our teams have always managed to compete for top honors in all sports. Even with our leaky old gym, most schools would kill for the indoor practice space we can provide. As long as we can maintain good relations with the City of Berkeley for the use of their parks and courts, we can continue to find room for all of our sports.”
Granted, while the school is very successful with its sports teams, and the majority of them are doing just fine, there are clearly problems that need to be addressed.
Smith and her PE classes are owed the right to function effectively. The Berkeley High baseball team should not play their games on a field where you may find a rock in the infield, or play on a field with no infield grass. They deserve a field of their own. This is not solely the fault of Berkeley High School, but regardless, something must be done. The school has rich athletic traditions, and with a little work, we can make them even greater.
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