By Andrew Coen
The all-volunteer Athletic Facilities Committee (AFC) took the initiative to privately fund the project, slated to be completed in time for Hewlett's Oct. 4 home opener against South Side.
In addition to the football team, the boys lacrosse team, which has played games at Ogden Elementary School the last two seasons, will now play all games on the new turf field. The boys and girls soccer teams will also play some of their games on the new surface. Also, there will be youth soccer and tee ball games played on the field.
The interior of the track will come equipped with a 10-foot-high net so that during a lacrosse game, the track team can hold its practice at the same time and not have to worry about being hit with an errant shot.
The mission of the AFC is to develop a comprehensive plan to improve the district's athletic facilities. Four men who played a major role in raising funds for the project were Andrew Tarica, Mark Baron, Jack Seibald and Mark Bershad.
It was determined that the number one priority after a comprehensive study of all the fields was to improve the high school field to a multi-sport field from a sole sport field of football, said Tarica, an AFC chairperson. If we could get most of the high school sports back onto the high school field from the elementary schools, we could then do a multi-phased project of restoring the other fields.
Baron added, The community had lack of space and the need was there to develop a concept that would accommodate all the needs of the community. When it was realized that we couldn't find additional property and couldn't find other facilities that would allow us to utilize it on a regular basis, we opted for getting the most out of what we have.
The committee looked into five field turf providers across the country and decided on Land Tech, a Long Island-based company that provided the field turf surface for Giants Stadium, the new Hofstra University soccer field, the Stony Brook University football field and Chaminade High School's football field.
The beauty of these fields are they can take four inches of rain in an hour and be drained, said Tarica. This field will always be soft and always maintain a constant g-mat. Safety was really the number one issue that we went for and we chose Land Tech because they have a rubber and sand mix and from all the studies that we did it was determined that was probably the best product on the market.
The AFC wants to make clear that this field does not at all resemble the original Astroturf that was created in the 1960s at Houston's Astrodome. This is quite a far cry from the original Astroturf that was put down in the Astrodome, said Bershad, who is also a chairperson on the committee. It's a total different product. It looks and feels like grass.
The AFC also emphasizes that this project will benefit all sports and not just the ones that will be played on the resurfaced field. This is not the high school field project or the football/lacrosse project, said Seibald. We really took the whole school district on in terms of the needs of the whole school district from little league in our community to boys and girls soccer to a future potential pee wee lacrosse league. It's really a complete district-wide plan to improve all the facilities.
In addition to providing the district with first-class athletic facilities, the project will allow more high school teams to be added. The lack of adequate athletic facilities in the past prevented Hewlett from fielding teams like girls lacrosse and girls JV soccer, where the interest was there but the logistics prevented it from happening.
At the high school there was not a JV girls soccer team in part because they couldn't accommodate the other space so you played at the middle school, said Seibald. If you were really good, they might move you up to varsity but if you were in between you sort of got lost.
A JV girls soccer team is starting at Hewlett this fall and a girls lacrosse program is being planned for the near future.
According to the AFC, had the boys lacrosse team continued to play its games at Ogden Elementary School, it would have become a safety hazard. Ogden was basically deemed to be un-playable. It was unsafe, said Tarica. We were at many games there and it was just a matter of time before somebody got hurt.
Ogden will become safer thanks to the top soil from the football field being moved from the football field and being placed at Ogden to allow soccer and a possible future girls lacrosse team to play and practice there.
With the district struggling to pass a bond for a new middle school, the AFC felt it could not get the mission of improving the athletic fields accomplished by referendum, which is why it took the initiative to fund it privately. This is 100 percent funded privately, said Tarica. We knew early on that if we wanted to operate on an aggressive time frame and we wanted to get something done this year without going to the board, without going to the state and without going to referendums, we would need to fund this thing privately.
We essentially took a pragmatic approach in saying that this is a larger issue as far as the new middle school. I think we'll share that same desire for a new middle school, said Bershad. That is something that has to go through the board process, though. We felt that going after something like this was attainable. Hopefully, this will be a spring board to other projects.
Once the field is completed it will be gifted to the district from the Hewlett-Woodmere Education Foundation, which will make all donations tax deductible.
The AFC is an open committee that anyone in the community can join. Donations are still being accepted. For information on getting involved with the committee or to make a contribution towards the project, one may call (516) 374-8146.
