YORBA LINDA : More Tiny Football Players in Less Space

Call it bonsai football: the art of dwarfing and shaping offensive and defensive plays to fit in a tinier-than-normal practice space.

It’s an art form Pop Warner officials in Yorba Linda and Placentia are becoming all too familiar with as they cope with a growing number of players practicing on a limited number of fields.

This year, the youth football league’s Placentia/Yorba Linda division signed up 270 boys on seven teams. Finding practice time became a scheduling nightmare.

“Last year we had so many kids get hurt at practice from bumping into other players we had to drop two teams,” said league Vice President Pete Galassi. “Even so, the teams still only have about 30 yards to practice, and some of these guys can throw the ball 50 yards.”

There is a glimmer of hope, however. The Yorba Linda City Council has shown more interest in building and acquiring sports facilities than past councils. And last week, the council voted 5 to 0 to make finding an additional baseball field a top priority. Football advocates hope the generosity will soon extend to them too.

And while the council action does little to immediately provide elbow room on the practice fields, those involved in youth sports say they are encouraged by it.

Paul Doty, who schedules practices and games for the 160 Yorba Linda teams affiliated with Junior United Soccer Assn., said he had “anticipated the (council) meeting with trepidation, but I came away very pleased with the results.”

Most encouraging, he said, is the change in the council’s attitude from recent years. Previously, the youth sports groups’ only firm council ally was Mayor John M. Gullixson, Doty said, but now it appears that recreation needs will get wider council support.

Gullixson agreed, saying the current council is fundamentally different from its predecessors.

“There’s been a major change in direction,” the mayor said. “I can now tell sports groups ‘It’s going to happen. It will get better.’ ”

But that will do little to change the scene a visitor found on a recent afternoon at Valley View Sports Park. There, several dozen 7- to 9-year-old boys, clad in football pads, helmets and cleats, were standing in the infield of a baseball diamond, listening to their coach describe practice drills and plays. Just yards away a similar group of boys, gathered in right field, listened to their coach go through his practice instructions.

Coaches were running shortened, streamlined versions of plays, at the same time wondering how their players will react when playing on a full-size field.

“They get conditioned to run a shorter distance, then in games they have to run further,” said coach Bill Graub. “It’s not fair to them.”

It’s the same for other fall sports, with just about every youth sports organization in the city having difficulty finding adequate practice sites. Some play the majority of their games in other cities, with parents driving up to 20 miles each way to get their children to practice and games.

Doty said he has teams crammed three to a field at most practice sites every night of the week.

According to parents and league officials, a growing number of kids are missing out because of the lack of facilities. Pop Warner officials say they turned down 265 children in the last four years, and other leagues estimate they are losing players because practice and game sites are held in other cities.

Most of the sports organizations are also putting more children on each team, making coaching harder and reducing playing time for all kids, particularly less skilled players.