The College of New Jersey, located in the Hillwood Lakes section of Ewing, N.J., has been the locale of choice for many state championship finals under the control of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association.
During fall weekends, the campus was the place to be, with soccer games spaced out on Friday and Saturday, and the field hockey finals on Sunday.
Much has happened with the structure of competition over the years, as well as the facilities on campus.
In the next couple of days, there will be eight championship finals held on campus. The girls’ games will be held at the school’s field hockey and lacrosse complex, which is a facility carved out of a parking lot next to the softball field, named for the legendary head coach Dr. June Walker.
The four boys’ games will be held at Lions’ Stadium, which used to be the first-choice venue for field-invasion sports at the NJSIAA. It sits only about 150 yards north of the field hockey complex.
There are, however, coaches who are not satisfied with the arrangement, which sees two doubleheaders today and two tomorrow, each at the two sites. There has been concern with the surfaces on which the teams are to play. The field hockey and lacrosse complex is turfed with Poligras, a short-grain turf surface. Meanwhile, Lions’ Stadium has a rubber-infill surface, which is better suited for contact sports where players may tend to be knocked to the ground.
While the coaches of the girls’ teams competing this weekend are couching the controversy as a safety issue, I think there is a lot more to consider when it comes to the way this tournament is being conducted.
First off, there is a considerable difference in capacity between the two facilities. Lions’ Stadium has a capacity of 6,000, while the field hockey and lacrosse complex seats a mere fraction of that.
But the second concern is the fact that you have two separate locales — which means you have to purchase separate tickets if your school sends both your boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams. You can’t buy one ticket to watch a quadrupleheader like you could a quarter-century ago.
For me, this is a severe step back in terms of equity. Not a good look.