Frquently Asked Questions - Soccer

Seattle Parks and Recreation, in looking for alternatives to additional user fee increases, has set some new guidelines for soccer field users. As the home team coach you will be required to:

• Trained as a certified user to perform maintenance on city fields, by watching the required training videos shown at the coaches meetings.
• Refresh the lines after each game on all non-synthetic fields in the goal boxes, corner kick areas, and the center line and circles.
• Fill in rubber, rake, and roll after each game on all synthetic fields in the goal box and corner kick areas.

The supplies will be provided by Seattle Parks and Recreation in the maintenance sheds on site at each field. Failure to do this after each game will result in loss of use of these fields for CYO Athletics. No maintenance is required for practices, only for games.

For soccer, CYO athletics is only involved in distributing City fields to the programs that use them, and not allocation past that point. Fields are allocated to those programs based on what CYO Athletics receives from Seattle Parks and Recreation regionally.

CYO Athletics receives fields for scheduling games in two ways. One, from various parks and recreation departments, and two, from the parishes and schools.

1. City Parks and Recreation Departments:
   The fields we receive are based off of historical use in each city, as well as blocked scheduling. There are always more users than field space available in each city, so parks and recreation departments will allocate many of their fields based on historical use. Below is the City of Seattle’s policy on historical use, and the considerations involved.
   • Priority Access for youth
   • Protect fields from overuse
   • Prioritizes among groups/organizations – locations/times
   • Provide equity with age groups and sports seasons
   • Allow for new field sports
   • Allow for new field sport organizations
   • Local before Citywide
   • No guarantee of same field year to year
2. This is the same for all users, and thus explains why CYO Athletics consistently schedules games and practices on certain fields and not others. Fields we do not use are very often allocated to another user who has those fields.
3. The City of Seattle schedules users with blocked time because:
   • Block scheduling allows for Seattle Parks and Recreation to schedule historical users in advance and know field availability for expanded programs.
   • Block scheduling allows Seattle Parks and Recreation to “see” openings that enables them to schedule new sports and underserved groups.
   • Block scheduling was enacted in 1980 due to the pressures of massive growth in adult and youth sports like they are seeing once again currently.
4. Parishes & Schools:
   Parishes and schools in our program which have fields at their facility are sent a “Field Request Form” prior to each season with the days and times of the upcoming season. Athletic Directors return these forms to CYO Athletics with the dates and times their field is available, and what level of games can be played on their fields. We then use this information in our scheduling process.

There are a variety of ways to help improve the quality of fields in your neighborhood. Though required by Seattle to repair and maintain fields after each game, game day maintenance is just one way to be good stewards of the facilities in our care. Please contact your local parks and recreation department for further information on how to become involved.

Also visit the Friends of Athletic Fields website to get involved.