On a clear, beautiful afternoon, Free State High senior Scott Schumaker recently presented a demonstration at the school’s soccer field.

“Watch this,” said Schumaker, a midfielder on the Firebirds’ boys soccer team last fall.

Then, he nonchalantly kicked a soccer ball on the ground from midfield toward the west sideline. The ball often took unexpected hops, and occasionally jetted in a different direction before coming to rest by the team bench.

The ball had struck divots, bare spots and grass patches on a field that coach Jason Pendleton once lauded as “the best on-site facility in Kansas, outside of district fields.”

Pendleton made that comment to the Journal-World nearly 18 months ago, after private funding and a lot of hard work turned Free State’s soccer field into a jewel even though it lacked lighting for night games.

Pendleton doesn’t feel that way anymore.

“To see it deteriorate to this level is kind of depressing,” he said.

Pendleton said he was — and still is — more than willing to do what he could to keep the field in peak condition without asking for any compensation. But he says the school district’s maintenance workers won’t let him — even going so far as to padlock the sprinkler-control box, then epoxying the hinges so Pendleton couldn’t open the box no matter how hard he tried.

“They basically didn’t want me touching the sprinklers,” Pendleton said. “They didn’t want me watering the field. They didn’t want me doing anything to it whatsoever.”

A close look at the soccer field at Free State High shows what kind of condition it is in. FSHS coach Jason Pendleton and the Firebirds have offered to fix and maintain the field, but their request was denied by the school district.

Do not touch

Before the sprinkler box was sealed, Pendleton, assistant coach Chuck Law and a couple of players cut 600 rolls of sod and spread them on the field after they had filled the imperfections with dirt.

“After it got looking nice,” Pendleton said, “they said, ‘You’re through dealing with this field.'”

Pendleton believes territorial issues are involved.

“Maintenance people do maintenance, teachers and coaches teach and coach — even though I was willing to do it for free,” he said.

Tom Bracciano, director for operations and facilities for the school district, disagrees.

While Bracciano confirms he doesn’t want Pendleton doing whatever he pleases, he stressed Pendleton’s help is more than welcome.

“It’s not a forbidden thing,” Bracciano said. “We’re just trying to coordinate who’s doing what.”

Different directions

Two different entities doing different things to the same field, Bracciano noted, could wind up wasting money and hurting the field. He would like coaches to help, he said, just as long as their aid is in tune with what maintenance has in mind.

“Everyone cares and wants the fields to look good,” Bracciano said. “But we need to have a schedule or a plan or it could be detrimental.”

As far as the locked sprinkler boxes, Bracciano said the sprinkler system connects with the soccer field, the baseball field and the football field at Free State. Watering any one of the fields could affect all the fields.

“When you run that system whenever you want, you drop the pressure and you don’t get pressure elsewhere,” Bracciano said. “One person needs to operate it. It’s a coordination thing.”

Free State’s soccer field, as well as the school’s baseball diamond, are among the few facilities used by the city high schools that aren’t rented by the school district. Lawrence High’s soccer teams, for instance, use the fields at the sprawling Youth Sports Inc. complex in southwest Lawrence. The Lions’ baseball team plays at Ice Field in the city-administered Holcom Complex.

When asked if the Free State High baseball field was in satisfactory shape, Firebirds’ baseball coach Mike Hill said, “No comment.”

Tough winter

Bracciano attributes the poor condition of both fields to a tough winter.

“The soccer season ended in October and we aerated the field in November,” Bracciano said. “We had a real cold winter. We didn’t get much germination.”

The soccer field at Free State became a respectable facility through improvements funded internally by the teams during the 2002-03 school year. Prior to the 2002 boys season, a press box was constructed, and a sound system, covered team benches, scoreboard and concrete walkways were installed.

All of the added amenities still are there. But perhaps the most important attribute — a safe playing surface — isn’t, and that’s what has Pendleton upset.

“We worked really hard to try and create something we could have pride in,” Pendleton said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

With the weather now warming up, this would be an ideal time to make repairs. Problem is, the girls soccer season is already underway.

For now, Bracciano said, finding a common ground through improved communication would be a good start.

“One of our issues is that the seasons run late and they start early,” Bracciano said. “We struggle trying to keep up a competition-level field with the use it gets. It’s not an excuse. It’s reality.”