What it is that drives people to go above and beyond, to strive, to achieve, to give of themselves and their time as a volunteer outside their normal nine-to-five?
For Ron Bloomfield, who created the Malibu Team Sports program in 1981 and has run it in his off hours ever since, the inspiration, in a (then) town lacking any real organized sports for children, was simple: “I had a five-year old.”
So for the past 19 years, after leaving work at his Bloomfield Financial Group in the early afternoons, he has worked to create a place for his and all children in Malibu to play sports–an activity he endorses as a way to “keep these kids off the streets, [by] creating a positive environment and interaction for them.”
With his excited and eager way, Bloomfield talked over lunchtime sushi about starting the soccer program, the basketball and baseball leagues (boys and girls) and getting funding and sponsorships from parents and local businesses. He makes the monumental project sound easy, preferring to tell funny little tales about children having fun playing sports, rather than the somber admission of long hours, five days a week, year in year out, and the inevitable dealings with overbearing parents.
In the unique position of founder, director, and head of the program, he has always been the man in charge, the one behind it all. “I like to call myself a benevolent dictator,” he says, smiling. “I had my way, you know. I always ran it my way.”
But with that freedom of power and leadership there also came responsibility. A program of this size (at last count the soccer program alone was fielding 600 kids a season) requires money and strong backs.
Bloomfield dismisses that pressure with a revelation of his Malibu version of Machiavellianism. “You know how I got support?” he asks, with a wink of an eye. “My referees were high school athletes that I was paying a lot of money to. They were paid well. They always came back. Loyalty.”
So is it going to be strange for the dictator to give up the post when the City of Malibu steps in with its athletic commission in six weeks?
“No, no,” says Bloomfield. “You know, I’ve always told parents and everyone that if you would rather do this, c’mon. No one ever did. I only did this because no one else would. And Malibu really should run the program.”
But the important detail is the fact that he did continue to run the program, rain or shine, for 19 years.
Amy Crittenden of the Malibu city sports and recreation office, who is taking over for Bloomfield, is wildly impressed by his legacy. “The fact that he kept running [the program] even after his kids had gone through and grown up just shows that he’s done it because he cares about Malibu’s kids,” says Crittenden. “He wanted to make sure that they had the opportunity to play sports.”
Bloomfield affirms this, saying, “The fact is these kids just need the chance to play and compete while they can. You know, they’re not really the next Michael Jordans; only one Malibu kid has ever gotten a professional contract for sports. So you gotta play while you still can.”
Bloomfield has a way of being humble and straightforward–he just smiles when he is told that former Malibu Mayor Tom Hasse called him “incredible,” his work “invaluable and amazing.” But Bloomfield is well aware of how important his work has been. This past March the city handed him its highest honor, the Malibu tile, at a special ceremony in his honor, and on June 16 a farewell party will take place for the parting dictator of local sports “to thank him for his unselfish work and his ability to coordinate a great participatory program in a city full of individuals,” according to friend and Malibuite Steve Karsh.
Bloomfield says that the real affirmation has come from former players, “not just with thanks, but when I see them and they are doing well in everything they do, it’s just great to see. It makes me feel like we had a positive influence.”
The positive influence is as well entrenched in the city, as it is the former players. Crittenden, who Bloomfield refers to playfully as the “heiress,” said that the strong, consistent tradition Bloomfield has created “has made my job so much easier. I just walk in to this well-established program, a community program, which I already feel apart of.”
And as the passing of the torch nears, what will he do now with all the extra time?
“I don’t know yet,” he answers. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out, but, you know, you really ought to come to that party on the 16.”