Oakland International Students' Fight for Soccer Field Pays Off

By Doug Oakley
Staff Writer
doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com
OAKLAND -- A public relations assault on school district administrators paid off for immigrant high school students fighting for a soccer field at Oakland International High School. 

The school district has agreed to pay $185,000 to dig up the hard asphalt parking lot the school team had been using for practice and put in artificial turf. 

Last spring new immigrant students from Afghanistan, Yemen, Colombia and other countries at the school created their own website, , and video asking why they have to practice in a parking lot when the Oakland Technical High School baseball team got to use the field at their school most of the time and call the shots on its use. 

It turned out the baseball team was there first and had appropriated the field with private funds when it was part of an abandoned school site that later became Oakland International High School. 

But now, at least the Oakland International High School students have a place to practice and don't have to worry about soccer-baseball tensions. 

"It's probably not their dream solution, but it's going to be better than what they had," said Troy Flint, Oakland Unified School District spokesman. "Obviously, we need to provide better spaces for kids to play in these congested areas like North Oakland. And we need to do a better job of coordinating between schools and the city to maximize upkeep of facilities." 

Practicing on the small piece of parking lot behind the school got so dangerous, the players voted to hold practice at a nearby city park, said coach Ben Gucciardi, program director for Soccer Without Borders, which runs the soccer program at the school. 

"It's just not safe; we had so many kids get cut up and injured," Gucciardi said. "We let them vote, and they decided to come here." 

"Here" is Mosswood Park, 10 blocks away from school, a very urban and at times unsavory place for students to play ball. 

"If you think about the standard for what high school sports should be, this doesn't even come close," Gucciardi said. "If you asked the team at Bishop O'Dowd to come out here, they'd laugh." 

He said the new practice field, when finished in mid 2015, will be a lot better. 

"And the kids will be able to feel a lot of pride in knowing their campaign made it happen," Gucciardi said. "In the end, we also had a good collaboration with the baseball team to try and figure out what makes sense." 

The girls' soccer team at the school is still using the baseball field, he said, "because there is much less impact." 

Principal Carmelita Reyes said she got some of what the students need, but not everything. 

"Instead of practicing on a small piece of asphalt behind the school, we will be practicing on a small piece of artificial turf, but you can't hold games on it," said Reyes, who pushed her students to lobby the school district for a better place to practice. 

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