By: Ronan McCarthy ’20

Seven Beaver varsity sports teams are currently playing in the spring season. However, the lack of Upper Field space has prevented spring sports team from practicing and caused tension between sports teams. “The current field situation is hectic and definitely should be changed,” Baseball player Diego Aguilera-Steinert ‘22 claimed.

Currently, Baseball and both Lacrosse teams share Upper Field for a majority of the time. Ultimate Frisbee occasionally needs the space too. With the teams being so close, safety concerns have been raised. Frisbees, lacrosse, and baseballs often fly from one team’s practice to another; this has often caused animosity and tensions between teams.

A dispute between baseball and girls lacrosse occurred as baseballs were accidentally flying into the lacrosse space during batting practice. This lead to a confrontation between both coaches and Alex Gould needed to calm the situation. Gould pulled both coaches aside and talked to them in private, making it unable to hear what was being said.

Whenever home games occur, one of the three teams on the field is often forced to practice somewhere else. Both tennis teams are bussed to courts off campus due to lack of accessible courts. While not having enough space is the main problem, the lack of field space has caused other problems. One of these problems includes the lack of development within the programs because of the inability to form JV teams.

“So while we do have a relationship with the town of Brookline, Beaver is on the bottom of their priority list. All other Brookline schools or recreation programs will get the use of the field before Beaver will,” Athletic Director Alex Gould expressed.

Gould later explained how spring sports differ from the other two seasons. Fall teams have more fields to access including Soule and the YMCA; in the spring, however, these fields do not have the proper lines or adequate space for any of the spring teams. When asked about other possible fields around Brookline he responded that “ We have tried to look for extra field space but Brookline will always get priority over us.”

While these adversities have faced all the spring teams, Gould still hopes these teams can be competitive and successful in the spring session.