Front Yard Sports Comlex

As I was mowing the grass last week I concluded that either my yard is shrinking or my trees are growing. I know because I spend much more time ducking branches and circling trees than I used to.

There was a time when mowing wasn’t necessary. The grass was trampled by endless games of soccer and football and baseball on the fields of the Carroll Multisports Complex.

As the head groundskeeper at the complex, I was able to quickly convert the playing surface from a soccer stadium to a Frisbee golf course in just minutes. Trim a few branches and we were ready for football or wiffle ball depending upon the season.

The Carroll Multisports Complex included a little less than Olympic-size pool for swimming competitions and of course pool basketball. Unfortunately the pool consumed our backyard so other field sports were moved out front.

Using the trees as imaginary defenders or mid fielders, we were able to simulate Super Bowls and World Cups right in my front yard. The crowds were much smaller but the parking was free.

Adapting sports to the landscape is nothing new for kids. Baseball fields have been cut into corn fields and shaped around abandoned city lots. Soccer is played by kids around the world in just about any space and surface that can hold a ball – if there is a ball at all. Regardless of the location, the rules are basically the same with a few considerations for local hazards.

I learned to catch a baseball and dodge cars the same year. We had no yard so we played catch in the city street outside our house. The stream of moving cars was only one of many challenges. Parked cars could be just as dangerous and so could their owners if balls landed on them. Sewers and fenced yards simply increased the odds that an extra game ball might be needed.

In the days before PlayStation, we spent almost all of our outdoor time playing sports. In the fall we played touch football in the street. On short winter days we even played “under the lights” although the best passes often flew over the lights and reappeared halfway down the street.

Basketball season was re-enacted on my friend’s driveway with clotheslines and curbs officially out of bounds.

Once the baseball season rolled around, we alternated between playing running bases in the street and stickball in the schoolyard down the block.

No matter what sport, the distance between two telephone poles was just about the right distance. A “football field” would extend the length of three telephone polls and manhole covers made great home plates in baseball. Trees or cars served as first and third base while second base was anything that wouldn’t blow away.

The Carroll Multisports Complex saw a lot of action in its early years. There was ASA soccer practice and that game where dad throws the ball at his kid’s baseball glove in the hope that it gets stuck there. We graduated to running football passing routes during halftime of Notre Dame games and later created a very tight Frisbee golf course.

These days the sports complex lies silent like Texas Stadium. My kids are more likely to drive 35 miles to Arlington than they are to play ball in our front yard. I’m not complaining though. At least the grass is growing again.