---

Concern that the Asbury Park Pop Warner Football League would be locked out of playing on their home practice and game fields was thwarted Thursday by the Asbury Park Board of Education [BOE].

Following the recommendation by Labor Counsel Aaron Mizrahi, the BOE voted to grant Asbury Park Youth Football League a waiver for facility and custodial fees but not for the use of the fields.

Board member Corey Lowell said the board as policy makers could not be involved in granting use of a field to a particular organizations.

“I find it unconscionable that one group would monopolize the use,” she said.

APYF head James Famularo said that was not their intention. Instead, the date and field requests were meant as a procedural act that would allow the league to hold certain dates until their schedule is released.

But Pop Warner president Teddy Wilson said the move would have prevented them from practice and playing on what traditionally has been their home turf.

“They are leaving my program without a field to play on,” Wilson said. “They are trying to do everything they can to sabotage Pop Warner.”

Members of the Asbury Park Youth Football League split from the Pop Warner organization after issues of meeting cancellations and spending arose, Famularo said.

The two year old APYF has an estimated 90 players who are charged $85 to participate in the league. Pop Warner has close to 200 players who pay $125 to participate in the over 50-year-old league. The youth football league schedule runs from August through December.

“We have children being pulled in different directions and that becomes a problem,” Board member Angela Abhez Anderson said. “Adults have to be the role models that they are and so we have to be able to share.”

Superintendent Lamont Repollet said he will work to ensure the field game and practice times are equitable for both youth leagues.

“I’m hoping the adults in both leagues will get together and do the right thing for the kids,” Repollet said.

———————————————————————–

Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.

---