CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Student athletes at a high school on Chicago’s Southeast Side are without a practice space after they said the Chicago Park District told them their regular field is off-limits.
The Washington High School boys’ soccer team held two practices at their usual turf field at Calumet Park before they were told they couldn’t under current covid state guidelines.
Sophomore Gabriel Fuentes isn’t sure where the team will meet but he hopes to practice this week.
“Or something that we can count on to just get back on the field to get our first game in, to get in condition and to be the best on the field,” Fuentes told WBBM.
That first game is now in jeopardy. It was scheduled for Friday but without several consecutive days of practice it’ll have to be postponed.
Fuentes and his classmates said this shows the great inequity within Chicago Public Schools where some magnet and charter schools have grade A facilities while others like Washington don’t have the green space at school to host outdoor sports.
Trinity Colon, a junior on the girls soccer team at Washington High, agreed, adding that she isn’t sure the decision will affect the girls season that starts next month.
Players frequently have to contend with trash on the field or other teams using it and the fake grass is old but it’s theirs, Colon told WBBM.
“It’s not like it’s this high-glass field either. But We still love it, we still care for it and we still play on it. Even the field itself is probably not up to par with the other schools,” Colon said.
While they’re not able to use the park district field, she said some CPS magnet schools have newer fields on campus like Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, a magnet school a few miles away in Roseland.