I will put in my opinion since this is my game field. A majority of Greenville County have the worst playing fields in the state. I completely agree with this post and here are some contributing factors. This past fall a company sprayed a chemical on the field which killed the fescue and harmed the bermuda grass, secondly the sprinkler system broke limiting the ability to water the field down the middle, and third we have 7 teams in the Spring that use this as the game field. Our practice field is worse if you can imagine that. As much money as you would think Greenville County has it comes down to they don't. Because the county is not broken up into individual districts but is considered one district with a large number of schools, the amount of money the school receives is sad. Trust me, I would love to have facilities like Dorman and Spartanburg but the fact is most Greenville County schools are limited with budgets. We as coaches of our sport at JL Mann are required to cut the field ourselves and we have tried to make the best of it this year. For the Northwestern game the field was cut to 1-1/2" the only weeds were against the surrounding fence and nowhere near the field of play. The field was better last year and I have been told that the sprinkler system is being replaced this summer which will help for next year. I hope!!!!!!! As far as using another field to play on I would love to if I had money in the budget. I had to get donations from parents just to pay for 3 officials for some of our Region games this year so if anybody out there has any other ideas then please send them to my AD because individual coaches have no say when it comes to budgets for field maintenance.
Again, I will apologize for our field but it is no home field advantage, it limits us just as much as it does our opponents. I would love a flat wide field for my 16 premier players and 1 academy player to be able to move a ball on like we did at Dorman who has a perfect pitch to play on. I think the schools should be held to a size and condition standard for soccer fields so you don't go to schools like Riverside that play on 53 yards wide with the last 2 yards on both side sloping out of play or go to Wade Hampton who play the width of a football field and any player with an average throw in can whip it to the back post or to my field where you can't make a 5 yard pass without the ball bouncing up to your knees. Again, I would love to have a better field but the reality is we don't.
