Soccer coach, city square off about priorities, unfulfilled promises

For at least the past three years, more than 250 children each year have played soccer on makeshift competition fields, choking back swirling dust that rises from Sallisaw Sports Complex’s red dirt where grass is sparse and, at least this past season, ants and other unwanted vermin infested the playing surfaces.

To protect players, it was not uncommon for coaches to scour the pitch before game time, digging up rocks, filling in holes and tamping down longabandoned pitcher’s mounds from past youth activities.

And when it rained, there was a good chance games would have to be canceled because of mud and water settling on the poorly maintained fields.

Meanwhile, adjacent to the soccer fields are manicured baseball and softball fields with lush green outfields, covered bleachers, fences defining the playing surfaces, protected dugouts and banks of lights that illuminate the four-plexes.

As Daren Fowler compared the stark contrast in facilities in southeast Sallisaw, he seethed and wondered in vain, “Why are my kids not worth that?”

Parents of soccer players share Fowler’s frustration and despondency.

Last week at the city commissioners’ special meeting, Fowler’s exasperation and indignation were manifested in the youth league coach’s best Howard Beale portrayal, venting that he and his teams have had enough and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

“We shouldn’t have to stop games for a dust bowl on the field because there should be grass on the field. And last year, that happened multiple times — we had to pause,” Fowler lectured the commissioners. “It’s not a baseball field. There’s not supposed to be dirt on it. We had to cancel games because it (the field) wasn’t properly maintained for insects and pests, and that was this year. We had to cancel games for mud and water settling on the field because they aren’t properly leveled or maintained. Prior to games sometimes, we have to go out there and dig up rocks and fill in holes or move pitcher’s mounds that have been left in the field because it was never properly maintained. Or pause games because there’s no backstops out there at all, and we lose balls down the hills or wherever.”

Then Fowler blended melancholy with his outrage.

“I’m sitting out there on the pitch with my kids looking down at the baseball fields, and I ask myself a question: ‘Why are my kids not worth that? Why can’t they get the same level of treatment? Why can’t they get the same field?’

“We get [from the city], ‘Hey, we’re working on it.’ We get the buck pushed down the road on it,” an impassioned Fowler scolded the commissioners.

“We’ve gotta take action on it. We’ve gotta change that. We’ve been promised this field since March of 2019. We’ve had this promised to the youth league for three, four years since we moved from Port Arthur,” Fowler chastised the elected officials and city manager Keith Skelton. “Were those funds ever allocated for that? If they were, where did they go to and why are our kids, these coaches, these parents, why are they not worth that? Why are we not worth getting the same treatment as the baseball fields got?

“We have been given reason after reason and excuse after excuse, and we really don’t want the excuses anymore. We want the city to deliver on its promise,” Fowler said sternly.

Skelton countered, telling Fowler that the city had not forgotten about the soccer fields.

“The soccer fields have been a work in progress. It was my goal this year to try to start working on soccer fields. I do have some money set aside in the youth and rec fund for that, and my plan was to get started on it after we got the pool put to bed,” the city manager explained. “Now with the issues that we have with the pool and the cost overruns, I’ve had to delay getting started on soccer fields until we can determine what the new bids are going to come out with and what additional funding that I’m gonna have to have.

“We are working on some different avenues of funding for the pool, which could still free up this money I have set aside to start the dirt work on the new soccer fields. As a staff, we’ve discussed the layout of the fields, we have a plan in place, we know what we’ve got to do. It’s just a matter of us getting to that point and utilize the funding that we have set aside and, hopefully, I don’t have to utilize that funding for the pool.”

(In the waning moments of Thursday night’s meeting and long after Fowler and his contingent had departed, Skelton told the commissioners that the city “had a little over $400,000 allocated in the youth and rec fund to start the dirt work at the complex for the soccer fields this year.”) In his response to Fowler, Skelton asked the coach if he had expressed his concerns to the youth league board as Skelton had requested, which Fowler said he had. Skelton said the city’s contract with the youth league stipulates that if there are any issues with the fields or “any part of their operations which the city can help them with, that they either form or nominate one or two members of their board or a small committee to come talk to us about issues with the fields. So far, I’ve gotten no visits from the youth league regarding the soccer fields.

“We try to maintain the fields as best we can when requested,” Skelton assured Fowler. “The stuff like the ants this year, we’ve had ants pop up everywhere — parks, the rest of our fields — and we’ve treated those the best we can with what we have at hand.”

Ryan Hilgendorf, vice president for the Sallisaw Youth League Sports Program and “Mr. Soccer” according to Commissioner Josh Bailey, also attended the city council meeting, and told Skelton he could appoint himself to serve as liaison between the youth league board and the city manager’s office.

But Commissioner Julian Mendiola also said he and Bailey attended a youth league meeting last month, and Mendiola asked the youth league to give him a list of areas needing attention. “I still haven’t heard from the youth league,” he said.

Hilgendorf admitted that a list has been generated, but just hasn’t been forwarded to the commissioners. “We just need to send it to you.”

Hilgendorf said “an easy Band-Aid would just be temporary grass on the fields, and then lighting. Those are the two largest, biggest issues that could be bandaged until we get more of that stuff taken care of.”

But Fowler has a list of his own detailing what his soccer teams need.

“We want three full-sized soccer fields that we were promised, and previous fields to be properly maintained for the U6 and U8 teams.

“We moved the youth league from Port Arthur over to the sports complex almost three to four years ago because we were running out of room. Our program keeps growing. The program just outgrew Port Arthur. The whole youth league outgrew Port Arthur,” Fowler contends.

“We were told when we moved [to Sallisaw Sports Complex] that these fields were going to be temporary. I’ve seen the project plans for the fields that were supposed to be put in. I’ve seen those since 2019. We were told that they would be done before the walking path, before the restroom facility at the walking path. Neither of those generate any revenue for the city of Sallisaw.

“We’re one of the largest sports in the world. Wars have stopped for this sport. Peace treaties have been signed and broken over this sport. And here in Sallisaw we can’t even get our fields properly maintained or regulation fields.

“We wanna host tournaments, we wanna bring these people in. Some of the towns in Oklahoma and Texas, they host youth league tournaments that are bringing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in revenue in because they have the fields to do so. We have the players here that wanna do it,” Fowler told the commissioners.

Fowler said Sallisaw is unable to join the Oklahoma Soccer Association because of a lack of regulation-sized fields and the fields are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Fowler maintains that the youth soccer league continues to grow despite the program’s challenges.

“That doesn’t consider all the kids, coaches, everything that we lose every year because we’re not investing into this program from the city to leagues and teams in Fort Smith, Tulsa, all over the place,” Fowler railed. “Kids are going other places because we’re not doing anything with the fields here. We’re losing teams to Gore right now. We had 125 kids coming from Gore and Vian to play in our league, and they’re going over and playing on their own fields now.

“We can’t even bring teams here for a tournament because our fields aren’t regulation and they’re not maintained, they’re not taken care of, and, quite frankly, sometimes it’s pretty embarrassing,” Fowler said.

Then Fowler revisited the disparity between the baseball and soccer fields.

“Why the difference in how well the baseball fields are maintained versus the soccer field? Why can’t we have regulation- size field?”

“That area where the soccer fields are right now was meant to be another four-plex in the future. That was the long-range goal for that,” Skelton retorted. “Sod was never put on that, so it was just hand-planted grass up there. So that’s one of the reasons why the difference in the grass that you have, where the other fields were sodded.”

Skelton then told Fowler that the proposed layout for soccer fields at the sports complex “has got two full-sized fields that can be divided up into whatever size fields they need for their use.

“For the area that you play on right now, I’ve already talked to my parks department, and we do have plans as early as we can next spring we’re going to fertilize and over-seed it with Bermuda, and also top dress it. It’ll be similar to what the baseball fields get. That’s kind of a stopgap.”

“It’s been a stopgap since 2019, the last four years,” Fowler snapped. “There’s a million avenues that we can take to fix this situation. But all we keep doing is putting a dirty Band-Aid on it and hoping it’s gonna hold to push us through.”