The other side
Let me preface this column with this comment. “We don’t know how lucky we have it around here.”
The Lancaster-Lebanon League, and even for the most part District 3, has some of the nicest facilities around. Whether it be football, baseball or softball fields, gyms and courts, we are fortunate.
Perhaps we are spoiled in that regard.
Then you have the other side, well not quite the world as the headline mentions, but the other part of the state.
Saturday, I got to see the other side when I traveled to Philadelphia to see the Columbia boys’ basketball team play Strawberry Mansion High School.
It was a great game, but the amenities left a lot to be desired.
Just for some background, this was third or fourth year that the Philadelphia Public League has been competing with the other PIAA schools. Use to be before they joined the PIAA, jumping from school to school, or program to program was pretty much common place.
Not so anymore.
The game was at South Philadelphia High School, just over a mile from Citizens Bank Park, the Linc, the Spectrum and Wachovia center. That was the good thing.
The rest, well let’s just put it this way was a treat.
Okay, there was a small parking lot in front of the school, but not really that big. Most of the parking had to be done on the streets, at whatever location one could find. Not good.
Then there was the walk to the gym and up a step that had granite steps with no railings for support.
It was also kind of nifty to have to go through a metal detector, which I can proudly saw I set off.
I had been warned about some of the things with the gym before, but was still surprised.
On a good day, the gym might have seated maybe 800. There were no bleachers on the one side of the floor and pretty much limited seating elsewhere.
The concession stand was no more than 10 feet off the floor and ran out of hot dogs. After a two-hour trip, that was the last thing I wanted to hear that I couldn’t get my Phillie frank.
You couldn’t drink out of the water fountains and the bathrooms were smaller than what we have here at our office.
And despite the two-hour trip, more than 300 fans from Columbia showed up. Mansion, who was within shouting distance might have had about 30.
Oh yeah, there was the scoreboard clock that had so many lights out, one would have thought they didn’t pay the electric bill.
And in all my 30 years or so of going to basketball, I rarely have seen a fan go out on the court and yell at a coach.
Saturday, there was a fan from Mansion, who during a second or third quarter run by the Tide walked out on the court near the Mansion coach to tell him he needed to play zone, and walked back. Myself and others sitting around me where like “Wow.”
So I guess the moral of the story is the next time you think we have it bad, its a lot worse elsewhere in terms of facilities and fields.
The Lancaster-Lebanon League, and even for the most part District 3, has some of the nicest facilities around. Whether it be football, baseball or softball fields, gyms and courts, we are fortunate.
Perhaps we are spoiled in that regard.
Then you have the other side, well not quite the world as the headline mentions, but the other part of the state.
Saturday, I got to see the other side when I traveled to Philadelphia to see the Columbia boys’ basketball team play Strawberry Mansion High School.
It was a great game, but the amenities left a lot to be desired.
Just for some background, this was third or fourth year that the Philadelphia Public League has been competing with the other PIAA schools. Use to be before they joined the PIAA, jumping from school to school, or program to program was pretty much common place.
Not so anymore.
The game was at South Philadelphia High School, just over a mile from Citizens Bank Park, the Linc, the Spectrum and Wachovia center. That was the good thing.
The rest, well let’s just put it this way was a treat.
Okay, there was a small parking lot in front of the school, but not really that big. Most of the parking had to be done on the streets, at whatever location one could find. Not good.
Then there was the walk to the gym and up a step that had granite steps with no railings for support.
It was also kind of nifty to have to go through a metal detector, which I can proudly saw I set off.
I had been warned about some of the things with the gym before, but was still surprised.
On a good day, the gym might have seated maybe 800. There were no bleachers on the one side of the floor and pretty much limited seating elsewhere.
The concession stand was no more than 10 feet off the floor and ran out of hot dogs. After a two-hour trip, that was the last thing I wanted to hear that I couldn’t get my Phillie frank.
You couldn’t drink out of the water fountains and the bathrooms were smaller than what we have here at our office.
And despite the two-hour trip, more than 300 fans from Columbia showed up. Mansion, who was within shouting distance might have had about 30.
Oh yeah, there was the scoreboard clock that had so many lights out, one would have thought they didn’t pay the electric bill.
And in all my 30 years or so of going to basketball, I rarely have seen a fan go out on the court and yell at a coach.
Saturday, there was a fan from Mansion, who during a second or third quarter run by the Tide walked out on the court near the Mansion coach to tell him he needed to play zone, and walked back. Myself and others sitting around me where like “Wow.”
So I guess the moral of the story is the next time you think we have it bad, its a lot worse elsewhere in terms of facilities and fields.
Labels: View from the Sidelines
posted by Tide talk at
2:36 PM
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