Salemites are still basking in the glow of the Salem High School football team’s remarkable 2023 season and trip to the state championship at Gillette Stadium. The team’s success was a flashback to Salem’s storied athletic history and to the community pride and enthusiasm that came with it.
We need to get back there.
In January of 2023, I asked my colleagues on the Salem School Committee for permission to form an Athletics Committee made up of Salem youth sports directors, district athletics leaders, coaches, community partners, principals, parents, City Connects coordinators, and anyone else I could wrangle to participate.
Over the course of the next eight months, the committee developed a set of strategic initiatives designed to engage more Salem children in recreational athletics and to give them opportunities to explore different sports, experience the value of teamwork and sportsmanship, and develop strong connections to their schools and community. Perhaps most importantly, the committee’s aim was to increase the number and diversity of students exposed to and participating in athletics and to improve the quality of their athletic experiences.
These are achievable goals, but not without the support of city and community leaders and coordination among the many organizations working to support Salem kids. In other words, it takes will. The will to maintain, invest in, and develop athletic facilities throughout the city. The will to provide translation services to our non-English speaking families. The will to lower barriers to play, including cost and transportation.
Over the years, Salem’s athletic facilities have received few, and in some cases no, meaningful upgrades, and other athletic fields have been taken offline completely. The new Bertram Field is an extraordinary resource, but it cannot meet the needs of an entire community. The other public fields that receive adequate attention, the McGrath Park soccer fields and O’Grady Field at Forest River Park, are funded and maintained almost exclusively by private youth sports organizations. Compared with our North Shore neighbors, Salem’s public athletic fields are embarrassingly neglected.
We need our city to devote financial resources to upgrading and maintaining our public athletic facilities so that youth and Salem Public Schools athletes don’t have to compete with one another for time on sub-par fields absent of lights, restrooms, and benches. We need Salem State University to be willing to partner with Salem Public Schools to allow teams to play and practice in well-maintained, state-funded facilities. We need to agree that the mental and physical health of Salem children is a priority for us as a city.
Salem can do this because we’ve done it in generations past. We can be coordinated, inclusive, and intentional about youth sports and have robust and successful school athletics programs. I call on us all — community members, city and Salem Public Schools leadership, Salem State University, and Salem youth sports — to help make the goals of the Athletics Committee reality for all Salem kids.
The Athletics Committee’s full report can be found here: https://shorturl.at/aHMRT
Beth Anne Cornell is a member of the Salem School Committee.