Austin Park is the only public park to have soccer goals for public use in the City of Batavia.
The soccer goals were made possible thanks to Notre Dame Girls Soccer Coach Jarrod Clark.
With the help of Jay Nickerson and his daughters Sarah, Rachel, Rebeka and Clark’s daughter Guinnevere, they were able to disassemble some old rusty goal posts that Clark had donated to Notre Dame from the S.C. Genesee Lancers about eight years ago.
“The goals were in real bad shape, with thick rust and they are heavy,” says Clark.
The steel goal posts were very heavy to move, so Notre Dame purchased an aluminum set of goals a few years ago.
Once the goals were disassembled and brought to Austin Park, the Clarks and Nickersons went to work, surface grinding all the rust and painting them with special paint for not so perfect metal surfaces.
“The girls went to town painting them all.”
Then the group reassembled them along with putting the nets up.
“I chose to go old school with how we put the nets up. We laced the net on with paracord for durability in weather and strength to handle many shots, rather than using the zip tie method. It was important to me to give the parks a quality set of goals not an eye sore.”
Clark’s Fighting Lady Irish team uses the field for practices during the week.
Along with the goals, there is now a bag of soccer balls in the net labeled Austin Park.
“One day after practice, I decided to return and drop off a ball in the net with the label “Austin Park” .
Clark says the ball lasted two weeks. Some kids in the park told Clark they knew who had the ball because they see him bring it to the park all the time.
“I told the kids its fine as long as its being used.”
Over his 25 years of coaching and playing, Clark has accumulated a lot of soccer balls and bags.
Brian Kemp then gave Clark the idea to leave a bag of balls instead of just one.
“Those soccer balls have been used more in the last two months than in the last 10 years.”
Next year, Clark hopes to improve the field by planting more grass than weeds and smooth out the humps for a better surface. He says he also intends to line the field and hopes to see an organized 7v7 Co-Ed adult league on Sunday. In the summer, maybe even a youth summer soccer camp.
“Even if its not perfect, its free to use and the community gets to use it as well. The park has transformed and I have noticed that there are less pavilion hangers doing vandalism and making bad choices.”