Their lot in life

Nick Christensen

Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004 | 9:42 a.m.

SUNRISE REGION

Northeast Division

Southeast Division

With its home football field slated to become home to a replacement for the school's aging campus, the Rancho football team set out last spring to find a place to get ready.

The options weren't great. There was the Advanced Technologies Academy's field, the former home of Faith Lutheran football three miles to the west. There was Cheyenne's field or Lincoln Park, both so far away that as Rancho coach Gary Maki saw it, the team would need 250 bus rides a year to pull it off.

Then, two blocks north of Rancho High, there was North Las Vegas' Hartke Park, an expanse of grass home to plenty of soccer fields but not much in the way of American football facilities. And that is where the Rancho Rams put down stakes.

Aside from its location, the situation is not ideal. There are no stripes on the fields, aside from the lines for the numerous soccer teams that call Hartke home. The grass is OK, certainly greener than most schools' football fields, but with a few mud holes filled with brackish water rimmed with algae. Corona bottlecaps and razor blades attest to the place's overnight status -- home for the homeless. Sparse trees line the field and provide shade to the few loyal Rams fans who come out to the afternoon practices.

The Rams have been forced to make do. Without a goalpost, the team found two light standards close together and tried to stick a length of PVC about 15 feet up. The "goalposts" were close enough together to make an Arena Football League kicker cringe, and the PVC didn't survive many practices. Rancho's players have had to rotate their place on the field, so as not to wear out the turf that they're gracious to North Las Vegas for loaning them. Maki rigged some PVC with holes to provide a water station, and spends his afternoon prep period setting up the park for his afternoon practices.

Originally, North Las Vegas officials were skeptical. Maki met several times with North Las Vegas city manager Greg Rose, and promised not to tear up his park.

"We come in now, and make sure it's cleaner than when we left," he said.

On many mornings during the team's two-a-day practices, Maki would arrive at dawn to find people sleeping on the field, near their storage shed, in the bathrooms. It presented a health hazard for the Rams, but it was something the team had to deal with.

Rancho quarterback Ariece Perkins didn't mind.

"It's the only place they've got to sleep," the bespectacled junior said. "We worked around it."

Perkins spent Monday afternoon lining up his offense around the goal line of one of the soccer fields, running play after play from the soccer field's end as the line of scrimmage. Out of bounds is a concept the Rams can only imagine in their practices. Across the park, the sounds of junior varsity practice echoed off nearby homes.

"It's been real tough out here, the heat, working before and after school," Perkins said. "It's made our work ethic harder out here."

Last Friday, the team shot the cover of their program, on top of a bulldozer with the caption "Under Construction." Later that night, the Rams proved they were indeed a work in progress, falling 41-6 in their opener at Green Valley.

Maki said that his team came out sluggish to Friday's game, but he wouldn't pin it on the practice situation.

"On our opening kickoff you could just see it. We went on defense first, and our kickoff team just kind of jogged onto the field," he said. "We're not as bad as we played. I hate to use (the field) as an excuse. We weren't ready to play."

The good news for the Rams is that in two years, they'll have a new high school -- with a blueprint more like a shopping mall than the cookie-cutter design the Clark County School District's used since 1991 -- and an artificial turf field for the 2006 season. Meanwhile, they'll keep practicing at Hartke and start playing home games at Canyon Springs High School later this year.

"So far it's gone well," Maki said. "We're good neighbors. This is ours too. We could be here for two years possibly."