The Unwritten Rules of The Playground

Op-Ed By Allen Bacon, The Daily Bosco

My ears stood at attention last Tuesday night at the City Council meeting in my hometown of Fullerton when I heard about the plight of the Blue Stars Soccer Club.

In a nutshell, the club who practiced and played at Richman Elementary School in Fullerton, was told by the City that they could have their field back after renovations were completed.

But when the renovations were completed, the field was given to another soccer club, The Fullerton Rangers.

This stirred up emotions in me because when I was a child growing up in Fullerton, Richman Elementary School playground was my home playground too.

I can't tell you how many games of football, soccer, kickball, Over the Line and baseball I have played on my field.  And when I was teaching my son how to play the game of baseball for the first time, I actually took him to a diamond on the Richman Elementary School playground in the middle of winter to get him ready for the upcoming Little League Season.  

So I have a lot of memories and feelings for Richman Elementary Playground.

I know it was a simpler time, but when I was a kid, we had this thing where if we wanted the field we could call "dibs" on the field.  If we were there first, the unwritten rule of the playground was "first come, first dibs".  But, that was ok, because if my guys had first dibs, you were always welcome into our game.

It seems to me that the Fullerton Rangers are breaking the unwritten rules of the playground here.  The Blue Stars were there first and should have a right to Richman Elementary School and not be kicked out.  

And it's not like the Fullerton Rangers don't have a field to play on.  The Rangers have the pick of the best soccer facilities in town.

Which brings me to a bigger issue.

It is my humble opinion that we should have one united team in Fullerton.  I don't pretend to know as much about Youth Soccer as I do about Youth Baseball in town.  But in baseball our kids our fractionalized into different leagues.

We have some playing in PONY league and some playing in Little League and in Little League we have three leagues in Fullerton.

We really should have just one League where everybody gets a chance to play for one United Fullerton team. 

In this way, squabbles over field rights would be minimized.