Taking a shot

It’s good to have goals, but on streets?

Oh, we do love our sports, don’t we? And we’re not just talking about the Razorbacks, even if they hold places one, two and three in the hearts of many sports fans in Arkansas. Of course, the order of those rankings change depending on the seasons — football, basketball and baseball — and the win-loss records.

But there’s a lot to feed our sports-frenzied souls beyond the Hogs, whether it’s the kids’ travel teams or catching the local high school’s contests. And it’s not all about organized sports. With all the benefits of physical activity, families and communities are well advised to make it easy to get moving.

Of course, not every game has numbered jerseys and pristine fields or hardwood courts. Just about every adult has memories from their childhoods of making do with what was available. From hitting balls with sticks to using driveways to display our inner Michael Jordans or Wilt Chamberlains, sports can happen just about anywhere.

Those times came to mind the other day with a story arising from a Farmington City Council meeting, where several residents of the Wagon Wheel subdivision urged city leaders to allow portable basketball goals on city streets.

City ordinance says the practice isn’t allowed, although we’d challenge anyone to find a community in which those movable goals don’t exist in some cul de sac or alongside a lot of residential streets where traffic isn’t much of a concern when a shirts-andskins game breaks out.

One resident said, and we don’t have a reason to doubt him, that only two cities in Northwest Arkansas regulate the placement of portable basketball goals on city streets. Sounds like he’s pretty motivated to make a change in Farmington, if he actually took the time to do that research.

The message from these residents is that the really local basketball isn’t happening in gyms, but in neighborhoods. And not everyone has a driveway that can double as the parquet floor of the Boston Celtics.

“We are a city now that is known as a basketball city,” resident Tyler Matlock told city leaders. “We had two teams in the state basketball championship. We want to continue that.”

Is there a connection between street basketball and state championships? Well, it can be argued either way, but there’s no question the love of sports starts in youth, and access means everything. Depending on a kid’s age, a basketball court a mile away might as well be in Little Rock.

So these residents are suggesting there are ways to maintain the chief purpose of residential streets — access by vehicles — while also encouraging kids to play basketball.

It sure seems like the city shouldn’t ban basketball goals across the board, so to speak. And that’s especially true if the town has a bunch of goals on the streets anyway, with law or code enforcement looking the other way.

The tricky part of this is how Farmington could write an ordinance that prevents what needs to be prevented, such as dangerous conflicts with heavier traffic, while allowing goals on quieter city streets. Laws are made for people, in many cases, who don’t share the common sense abundant with many Arkansans. Without boundaries, someone is going to set up a basketball goal smack in the middle of the street.

Let’s not diminish the safety element of all this. Kids “playing in the streets” can be dangerous, but there are lots of quieter public streets where that’s rarely true. People have been known to draw hopscotch squares in chalk and play in the streets. Is this so different? Especially with parental supervision.

The city has a responsibility to protect people from harm to some degree, but an outright ban equally affecting the busiest highways and quietest cul de sacs seems unnecessary.

These parents can hardly be blamed for looking for a way to make neighborhood basketball games accessible. We’re glad they gave the idea a shot. It remains to be seen if anything changes.

But it seems to us promoting kids being outdoors and engaged in physical activity isn’t the worst idea in the world.