Winthrop town leaders have promised to improve conditions for the Winthrop high school girls softball team after members complained that they have struggled for years with field options so imbalanced as to constitute a violation of basic federal protections.

Team members came before the Town Council last week after entering another year in which their chief field options – Cellucci Field, near the Gorman Fort Banks Elementary School; Ingleside field, in the center of town; and the Little League field, near the high school – all have major problems.

The team members and their parents and supporters, appearing Tuesday before the council, reiterated their patience and willingness to await solutions, but said they felt the depth and persistence of the problems, especially compared to the conditions afforded boys teams, forced them to come before the town government with a unified plea.

While the boys baseball team uses a high-quality field right next to the high school with lockers and bathrooms and storage, the school’s female athletes described themselves as having been left for years with field options that have a combinations of problem including distance from the school, a lack of rooms with toilets and changing facilities, fields that don’t match their sport, requirements for additional maintenance work, and competition for space claimed by teams in other sports.

Town promises

“We just want the same opportunity to have a field like the boys do,” high school junior Brianna Rizzotto told the Town Council on behalf of the girls varsity softball team. “This clearly looks like a Title IX violation in many people’s eyes,” Ms Rizzotto said, referring to the landmark 1972 federal law that forbids discrimination based on sex in education and other federally funded programs.

The presentation by Ms Rizzotto and team allies drew a quick promise from the president of the Town Council, Jim Letterie, to take prompt corrective action. Mr Letterie acknowledged the problems they outlined and said the softball players “deserve a very nice place to play as do every other kid in town for whatever sport they happen to be playing.” He added: “I will do everything I can to make sure that this is quickly done.”

Yet neither Mr Letterie nor any other council member offered a solution for the ongoing impasse. And the town’s position on the matter was largely stated by Sean Driscoll, Winthrop’s director of Parks and Recreation, who described the softball team as having a “great great spot” at the Cellucci Field and a “perfect spot” at Ingleside, spoke of the town and team facing resource limits, repeatedly attributed the team’s problem to recent weather conditions, said that the softball team has somehow managed with its options in the past, and blamed a failure of critics to be patient and understand the situation.

Mr Driscoll repeatedly said that all school teams have priority over other uses, but then described the girls softball athletes as regularly compromising in the past with the preferences of non-school soccer and baseball leagues on public fields. “They don’t like to play on the Little League field, but keep in mind that at the Little League field, they played there for a very very long time leading up to last year,” Mr Driscoll told the Town Council. As for the conflicts with soccer players at Cellucci, he said: “It’s been like that for a million years, but we’ve always made it work.” And the Ingleside field, he acknowledged, regularly floods and becomes “a mud pit.”

Attempted solutions

Softball and Little League baseball both use fields with 60-foot distances between bases. But the chief problem with the town’s Little League field, according to the team’s head coach, Erin Vercruysse, is that its pitching mound is raised and its infield is grass, both of which match the needs of baseball not softball. That condition has led to protests from some visiting softball teams. And Ms Vercruysse, in her fourth year leading the team, agrees that the Little League field is improper for the sport.

Cellucci Field, meanwhile, requires players to travel on their own from the school, has no locker facilities or bathrooms, and generates protests and interference from soccer teams using the connected field space. And while Ms Vercruysse spent $3,000 of her own money, with donated labor from local carpenter Matthew Titemore, to build dugout structures at Cellucci, the team is still required for each game to set up and take down temporary outfield fencing to separate them from the soccer players – a process that team members described as keeping them there into the dark.

That led the softball team this season to try the Ingleside location, in a plan boosted by an $81,500 grant to the town from the Winthrop Foundation, which is funded by compensatory money from the Massachusetts Port Authority related to the presence of Logan Airport. Team members said they accepted the Ingleside suggestion, while knowing that it often floods, because of the severity of the drawbacks at the other locations.

But the necessary work – shaping the former Ingleside baseball field into a softball diamond – was not started until this past November. At that point, team officials said, the ground was frozen and the grass installed there did not adhere, leaving uneven chunks of sod this spring. In addition, the team has been promised the use of locker and bathroom facilities at the town’s adjacent ice rink, but the female athletes said they hadn’t yet seen that access and were wary of being put in facilities built there for the use of boys.

Title IX recognition

The results include the team playing one of its early games at the field of an opponent that was scheduled to visit Winthrop, and practicing and playing other games at the Cellucci and Little League field locations. Along the way, the softball team said it has repeatedly been told that the Ingleside field would be ready for them, only to keep learning that it was not.

Mr Driscoll, a longtime football coach, repeatedly expressed frustration with those pointing out the problems. “It doesn’t seem to register with people that you can’t finish due to the conditions that are there now, and the conditions weren’t made by the contractor,” he said. The softball team, meanwhile, has said that it just wants a workable location, and has waited years for one.

The girls team also noted that top town officials held a ceremony on March 30 at the boys baseball diamond next to the high school, naming the field in honor of the school’s former athletic director, James Evans. Mr Evans was lauded there for his early and aggressive work in implementing the Title IX requirements in Winthrop. The softball team had a game that day and had asked without luck through Ms Vercruysse for the dedication event to be set for a different time so that its players could attend. “This was a huge disappointment to us,” Ms Rizzotto told the Town Council.

Through it all, Ms Vercruysse said she’s encouraged by the process and has “all the confidence” that the town will fix the problems facing her athletes. “I think the girls did an incredible job the other night, and they’ve been advocating for themselves eloquently and clearly and with respect, and I think the town has heard them,” the softball head coach said, referring to the Town Council presentation. “We’re working toward them being better advocates for themselves, and I think that’s really starting to show, and I’m very proud of them.”