New Playground: MLS Means Well, But Credit Goes To The Volunteers

How many Major League Soccer All-Stars does it take to put
in a playground? Apparently only three.

Well, three, along with the assistance of nearly 250 sweaty
volunteers, most of whom were wearing mud-caked shoes by the end of the day. And don’t forget a bit of extra labor
from five other MLS players, including three from our beloved Dynamo.

Under grey, rainy skies and with the crack of thunder
sounding in the distance, a shiny orange and blue playground was unveiled at
Golden Acres Elementary in Pasadena
on Tuesday afternoon.

The MLS players, league commissioner Don Garber, Sir
Bobby Charlton (ultra-legendary Manchester United striker), the volunteers and
the local press were on hand for the ceremonial “board cutting” (apparently
ribbon-cutting has fallen out of favor).

The Dynamo’s Pat Onstad did the
honors.

The project was a collaboration between members of the MLS
All-Star team (as part of MLS
W.O.R.K.S., the league’s charity branch), Home
Depot, KaBOOM! (a non-profit organization that goes around working on
similar
playground projects) and members of the community, but Hair Balls wants
to be
sure the majority of the credit goes to
the latter three organizations.

The MLS players and league reps did
show, but
that was only after the cameras were in place.

Near the end of the last school year, Golden Acres
principal Gloria Chomenko had to make the tough decision to remove the
previous playground because the structure was not up to code.

“It was
heartbreaking to have to do that to the kids,” Chomenko said. “But [the
school]
just didn’t have the money to make the necessary repairs.”

Soon after, the school applied for and was awarded a grant
through Home Depot to put in a new playground, which made for a
positive
end-of-the-year gift to students and staff.

Though the hard labor for the playground commenced at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning
(actually, a crew had
to come in on the Saturday prior to prep the area), the planning began
months
earlier. Designs were considered (which were submitted by students),
weekly Wednesday
planning meetings went down and a volunteer force was assembled.

By the time the project was completed, just
in time for the 1:30 p.m. press
conference, 130 cubic-yards of mulch had been strewn
about, four palettes of concrete had been mixed (by hand and rake) and
five picnic
tables had been assembled.

Three members of the All-Star roster were on hand to
contribute their efforts, along with six other MLS players, including
the
Dynamo’s Bobby Boswell, Geoff Cameron and Onstad.

While the playground
construction was ongoing, Garber commended the Dynamo
as one of the most active MLS clubs within its local community. (We
assume the Dynamo’s star forward, Brian
Ching, was still working on “The House
that Ching Built.”)

Boswell gets Hair Balls’ high-five of approval as the most
down-and-dirty MLS contributor, doing all the work barefoot. Onstad, who
was mainly stationed in the mulch pile, was a close
second.

Apparently it was asking too much to have American soccer
hero Landon Donovan to go from the World Cup to the Late Night circuit
to the
ESPYs to a small elementary school outside Houston.

For the record, only one of the MLS players who
came out is slated to start against Manchester United on Wednesday
night: Javier Morales of Real Salt Lake.

So the event was not exactly what it was publicized to be.

But a group of elementary school children
have a
brand new playground and that’s all that really matters.