The Walnut Ridge Soccer team gets a workout in before they ever take the field. They walk -- a lot.
COTA no longer accepts their student passes and therefore only about half of the team makes it to conditioning practice as some of the kids live several miles away.
Last week, Columbus City Schools told COTA to no longer honor school passes, even though they were already paid for by taxpayer funds. The district said the passes are for academic use only, and other than a few exceptions, there's nothing academic until the first day of school. So now, the soccer players have to find another way to practice.
"I walked here yesterday, so from all the way down there to here and I had to walk back there so that's kind of far," said Alhousseini Wane, a 17-year-old player.
Even though bus fare is only a few dollars, many of the kids live in situations where even a few dollars makes a difference.
"I had to go into the coin jar and get the quarters to pay for the bus," said Raul Florez, a 16-year-old player. He has to come from Broad and James to Walnut Ridge, which is on Livingston Avenue east of Hamilton Road.
Coach JD Elerick said that even a few bucks each day on bus fare is a problem for some of the kids.
"It's a big deal for them to have the proper shin guards that they need to have for the games, cleats, they need to have socks, you know, stuff like that and when they're struggling to get stuff like that, if you're going to pay $2 to $3 a day for a COTA pass five days a week for a month, that really cuts into the family -- especially when the family thinks this was already going to be provided for them, which they were told it was," Elerick said.
The team includes approximately 25 kids from five different nationalities, but only about a dozen have been coming to conditioning training this week.
"It's a very multicultural team, yet they all get along, they're all friends," Elerick said. "I consider it a school function and these guys need to be out here for stuff like this."
Expect to hear more issues about transportation when the football teams start practicing next Monday.
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