State-Journal.com - Athletic association: If you can't stand deer feces, don't play

A high school sports regulatory official says not much can be done about the condition of soccer fields at Capitol View Park and coaches should use good judgment when playing there.

"Any coach who walks on any field that they think is unsafe (should) walk off and not play," said Roger Cook a member of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association.

"(It"s) just a matter of using common sense," said Cook, whose full-time job is superintendent of Russellville Independent Schools.

In September, a soccer mom from Berea said she was "appalled" when her daughter's high school varsity soccer team was required to play on a Capitol Park field littered with deer feces. Her team lost 2-1.

"There was so much feces that not only parents from the Frankfort team were on the field scooping up the drier pieces but me and my husband were also picking up the feces into plastic bags," Robin Wilder wrote in an e-mail.

Parks Director Steve Brooks said there's not much he can do about the deer.

"You can shoot them with darts and move them, but we can't afford that," Brooks told The State Journal at the time.

"You can eradicate them, but that would be a public relations nightmare. Or you can live with it."

Brooks said he's never had a complaint about deer feces at the soccer fields at Capitol View Park in 38 years.

The Berea Community High School girls' varsity team lost to Frankfort Independent schools on Aug. 30 at Sower field #2. Wilder refused to identify her daughter, but she was listed on the team's Web site as Rachel Wilder, a sophomore.

Cook said he only received one complaint about the issue, which he discussed with members of the high school athletic association.

"We just have to hope that each school will make sure their fields are safe," Cook said. "I'm sure it's been taken care of by now, I hope so."

5.	Posted by pinpointers October 2, 2008
	what about the Skunk Urine, possum ****, raccoon feces, rabbit turds, vulture droppings, ticks, crickets, spiders, bugs,soccer player spit, soccer player sweat, fertilizer, river water irrigation.....ohmigod....please please don't let your kids play on those fields, instead give them a PC and a bunch of video games or a wide screen TV, a bunch of movies, a family bag of tato chips and a 2 liter bottle of coke and let them grow obese like many others that have never participated in sporting events...

3.	Posted by realdeal October 2, 2008
	kycpa - i thought the same thing as well. weather or not they won or lost has not a whole heck of a lot to do with deer pooping on their field. i used to never read the paper, but here in the last year or so i've started pretty much being addicted to reading the news in general, here and across the world, but man...some of the content of these articles are pointless and just poor. trying to make something out of nothing really. and if i were that woman's daughter that just might tick me off a little bit that they went out of there way to put my name in the paper.

1.	Posted by melissa.russell October 1, 2008
	What I don't understand is what the identity of the daughter or whether her team won or lost has to do with her complaint about deer feces on the field. Obviously it's a legitimate complaint. There are deer all over that area. Does the State Journal reporter think the mother would not have complained if her daughter's team had won? I'm not saying there's anything that can or should be done about the situation, I'm just puzzled about the reporting.