The Sports View

By Sun Advocate

The politics involved in dealing with problems between entities is always a concern to those who utilize that organizations services. And while this can be a problem with private companies, it becomes even more of concern when the problem arises with government entities.
We have all seen the debacle in intelligence gathering that exists between the FBI and the CIA in the last year. Some claim that 9-11 would have been stopped if these intelligence agencies had been cooperating with each other instead of competing and working at odds with each other.
Another famous “not work together for the public good” kind of scenario that we have heard about for years is the differences that occur between such organizations as the National Forest Service and the National Park Service. The Bureau of Land Management sometimes collides in policy and procedure with these agencies too.
At a more local level often public agencies don’t always get along either. I remember in my years of working for Granite School District in Salt Lake County, there were often times, as a manager of a large department there, I ran into conflicts with water utilities and with other public agencies. In particular I often had problems dealing with various issues when it came to the cities that fell within in our district. Most of the school districts students lived in the unincorporated areas of Salt Lake County, but I did deal with West Valley City, South Salt Lake City and Magna. Depending on what we were dealing with, and what department I had to go through to get things done, after a couple of years I knew at a glance whether it would be easy or hard to get accomplished what I needed to get done, because of the history I had with that particular agency.
Often, unfortunately, it came down to the personalities of the people involved. I knew that if I had to deal with Mr. X in the water department it would be more difficult than dealing with Mrs. Y in the planning department.
So what does this have to do with sports? It has a lot to do with it, particularly at our local level here in Carbon County. One who is involved in sports at all knows that putting on sporting events often is just not a matter of getting the team ready and going out on a field and competing. It has to do with scheduling, facilities and the preparation of fields and courts. Often sporting events that take place in our community require the cooperation of many agencies to make them successful. Examples abound; last year Carbon played their home games on CEU’s football field and this year many of the Dinos girls soccer games were also played there. Right now fall baseball has been going on, and the Carbon kids are playing on the CEU field.
On Friday afternoon I was at the Sunnyside Field covering the East Carbon-Tintic game. That game may very well have been the last regular season home game the Vikings will ever play on that diamond. Two weeks ago I attended a school board meeting where that body voted to put out between $50-60,000 to build a new field in East Carbon because there are problems with using the present field. But apparently the problems don’t have much to do with the physical aspects of the field; they have to do with problems of cooperation between the school district and Sunnyside City.
I have heard many varied stories about the situation. As everyone knows in this type of instance there are a lot of different points of view, not just two or three. Many of those views were voiced to me during the games Friday, from various people concerned about the circumstances.
Tom Anderson Field has been in Sunnyside a long time. East Carbon has played literally all their home games there since the school opened in the late 1950’s. Before that it was used by various leagues as well.
Many people have expressed to me that they are upset because the district is going to spend the money on a field where they do not own the ground. They also want to know if the amount of money dedicated to the project can possibly pay for everything needed for a good field, which includes not only the turf and the fences, but the bleachers, restrooms and a score board.
People have also expressed their consternation to me about the fact the school district and Sunnyside can’t work out the situation between themselves. Whether it’s the way the field is set up, what can be placed or not placed on the field or if the park restrooms can be opened for games or not, all these thing seem like they could be negotiated in some way, some how.
But let’s face it; the politics of any situation are complicated and often hard for those not involved to understand. District officials say this will be a better situation for both baseball and the kids, because the facility and the relationships will be much improved.
All I know is that on Friday afternoon a lot of people supporting the Tintic High baseball team needed to use the restrooms during that four hour double header, and locals had to tell them the team restroom didn’t work right and that the park restrooms were closed. Most Miner fans just looked perplexed, a few seemed upset.
This county spends a lot of time worrying about it’s image in the rest of the state, and consequently spends a lot of money and time trying to convince people this is a great place to visit.
But unfortunately, messages sent by situations like this to the outside world show a face that depicts just the opposite.