During the WHS fall sports season, the turf is a busy place. Boys’ and girls’ soccer, field hockey, and football are all competing for league titles or playoff appearances.

In the midst of the 2009 season, a debate quickly arose regarding what appeared to be an inequity of turf time for practices.

Many student athletes wondered why they weren’t receiving the same amount of turf time as other teams receive. Of course the speculation and gossip created possible reasons for this inequity.

Some people put the blame on the ones who schedule the practices. Some say the coaches have say in it. Instead of accepting that practice field our football team is “so passionate about”, I at least wanted to know how the scheduling process works.

My first step was interviewing our athletic director Ms. Dicarlo. The questions I asked her consisted of how the turf time was scheduled and what factors play a role.

First, every home game needs to be scheduled; it is an obvious priority.

Ms. Dicarlo is the one who schedules the turf practices so once the home games are scheduled; she next tries her best to give the team who has a home game the turf to practice on the day before their game. This automatically puts football in the back seat (one game per week). My interview concluded that the turf scheduling process is fair and is a very understandable process. And instead of scheduling being the issue, the need for turf lights and/or an adequate practice field needs to be installed in order to give the athletes maximum quality practice opportunity.

As it gets darker and darker in the fall the upper practice field becomes a safety hazard. If we pushed even harder for lights practices could easily be spread out on the turf with sunlight not being an issue.

Our turf is an invaluable asset to the athletes. The Westborough Rangers could be getting more out of it with lights.