A proposed development at the former RFK Stadium site piqued my interest because featured in this $500 million project, according to an August Washington Post report, would be three multipurpose fields.
I hope these will include regulation-sized baseball fields. There are not enough in the metro area to accommodate demand, squeezing many groups — and middle school students. At such a crucial age developmentally, when many kids already replace playing sports with unhealthy customs, those who still want to play often have nowhere to go.
I know this firsthand, because I run a youth sport organization, ages 4-22, which fields 10 baseball teams for 13- and 14-year-olds. These athletes have graduated from Little League fields and need the challenge and training of playing on fields to get ready for high school and potentially beyond.
Given the choice of folding teams or combining teams to share limited practice fields, we obviously chose to share field space and let the kids play. There is not enough field space for these 13- and 14-year-old teams to play and practice. This fall, we sent many teams from our Bethesda league over a dozen miles away to a Gaithersburg Field for Saturday afternoon games. Between record rainfall and the shortage of regulation-sized fields, our championship game was rescheduled five times.
This is unfair to hundreds of local kids. Research continuously trumpets the importance of physical activity, including via playing sports, in youth development. Who is undergoing more development than middle school kids? I don’t need to tell you what many middle school kids do when they quit playing a sport and suddenly have hours of newfound free time and no idea what to do with it. This is the most popular age for kids to stop playing anyway, according to reports. Let’s not give them one more reason to quit.
That’s why I urge developers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to build regulation-sized baseball fields at new schools, recreational centers, or free space being eyeballed for development. These fields could be used for much more than 13- to 14-year-old baseball teams; they can accommodate soccer and field hockey teams — as well as provide more spaces for community pickup games.
Let’s avoid the oversight that went into planning Montgomery County’s newest middle school, Silver Creek Middle, which opened last fall in Kensington. Montgomery County poured $42 million into the school and the site was designed without a full-sized baseball field (despite having more than enough acreage); they do have a couple of gyms, but only a Little League-sized baseball and softball field.
So please heed my call: If you build them, they will come — in droves. These adolescent ballplayers will stay active and healthier, develop more skills, and become healthier, happier adults on average. If the District builds a “commercial complex” including a new Redskins stadium at the old RFK site, as is apparently under consideration, make space for some ballfields. Remember, RFK opened in the early 1960s to both the Redskins and Major League Baseball’s Senators. Plenty of local teenagers aspire to be the next Bryce Harper as much as the next Ryan Kerrigan. Let’s give them more of them a chance.
Tony Korson is president of Koa Sports League, a 10-year-old nonprofit youth sports organization he founded based in North Bethesda.
