Coach Duane Jones of the West Philly Tarheels by Morris Park/Papa Playground, the Tarheels’ home field, which has recently been torn up for replacement work on a sewer under the field. (Photo by Sam Newhouse)

The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) is currently working on infrastructure improvement projects across the city. But some work has put out a West Philly youth football organization, and their coach is concerned the work will leave his home field even worse off than it already was.

The West Philly Tarheels on the field. (Photo courtesy of the Tarheels)

Coach Duane Jones of the West Philly Tarheels said preseason drills for his Pop Warner football organization are due to start in Morris Park at 66th and Lansdowne – also known as Papa Playground – in March. But ongoing work to repair a sewer running under the field will prevent them from playing there until April at the earliest, if the project finishes on schedule. Jones is also concerned the field, already uneven and prone to divots and instability that have caused more than a few twisted ankles, might be even more unstable after the work. 

“It really is a shame because our kids should have somewhere nice to go and play. We have a really good program. We’ve grown from 70 to kids to over 150 kids every year, we’ve started to do cheer, with 25 girls,” Jones said. “We’re not asking for turf, but give these kids a good grass field. Give our kids something to be proud of.”

Jones and his fellow coaches, all volunteers, work hard with the youths they train. They’re not criticizing PWD’s work, but have been lobbying their local representatives, so far unsuccessfully, to get the project expanded by a tiny fraction of its overall budget to include minor field improvements.

“The field’s been delicate for years,” Jones said. “In a perfect world, we would be asking to regrade, reseed and raise it a little, so there’s no drainage. If they could do that for us, that would be awesome.” Jones is not asking or even imagining that anyone would help fund repairs to the field’s inert scoreboard.

There is a smaller attached field where players can practice until the project is done, but this is the home field, where the Tarheels host 5-6 games a year.

PWD spokeswoman Laura Copeland said the field will be restored to what it was per PWD’s “replace in kind” policy for construction projects, but improvements on the scale Jones is asking for aren’t part of the plan.

“As a government entity, it is incumbent upon the Water Department to use rate payer dollars conservatively and responsibly,” she said in an email. “To that end, it’s our practice to restore only the areas that our work disturbs at a given project site. This is the reason why regrading and/or reseeding the field in its entirety is not part of the contract scope. However, PWD is also adding some berms on the south side of the field to help prevent pre-existing erosion issues at the baseball field.”

Copeland noted that the PWD has held seven community meetings about the project, and said this project involves, “relining the existing sewer on Leeds Street to extend its useful life, installing a new stormwater sewer on Lebanon Avenue and Leeds Street, and installing four rain gardens in Morris Park.”

The Tarheels have gotten some media attention in the past. In 2015, their Mighty Mites team (8-9 year olds) had an undefeated season, but were broken-hearted when they found out that Pop Warner was no longer sending their age groups to a peewee Super Bowl in Disney World. The story made local news (I wrote an article about it for the Metro) and caught the eye of a Florida businessman who donated an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World for the kids.

Five years later, some of the kids on that team are top football players in local high school teams. Jones and his fellow coaches are training the next generation, but Jones noted that other football organizations around Philly have far better fields and facilities – and may be attracting talented players out of West Philly.

“It’s a legacy. We’ve got to move it on,” he said.

– Sam Newhouse

The West Philly Tarheels with a recent championship trophy. (Photo courtesy of the Tarheels)