Those at home are Giants fans, back to the days of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl, two Jersey haunts, etc. The boy is fully and totally indoctrinated – he felt the kind of joy beating the Eagles this weekend that only glows from the true believer. So, this morning, he wants to go kick field goals at 8am, with a few buttonhooks and square outs to make the experience better.
Greenwich High School field was used by lacrosse players – because everything else is closed due to death-inducing chemicals, and the only other goalposts in the whole town are at Brunswick School, a private facility. So we go to Rye Brook High School, conveniently located hard on the state line in Glenville. No problems there, an outstanding facility with two football fields, baseball diamond, soft artificial turf, retractable lights for night games, every bell and whistle there could be. A whole, whole lot better setup than anything our mega-rich Connecticut town has to offer by a long shot.
Greenwich wins a lot of state football championships, mostly because we – and New Britain – have the largest student bodies. Bigger pool of players in which to choose from when you are the only high school in a town of 60,000. Many comfort themselves because we had Steve Young go to the hall of fame, or that Sullivan kid starts for the Vikings. But when the choices are so few, and the facilities so pedestrian, its not good that you have to go out of town to kick a ball around with your son.
Francis -
You worry about goal posts and dirt sales. Now here is something really important, you loser:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-20113920-10391705.html?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel
How cool is that? Plus she is a hottie.
Your Pal,
Walt
Gee, it’s nice to know that Rye Brook High School offers “an outstanding facility with two football fields, baseball diamond, soft artificial turf, retractable lights for night games, every bell and whistle there could be.”
I’ll tell you something else those Westchester suburbs offer that Greenwich doesn’t: sky-high property taxes.
Here we at least nod towards the way things should be done: services of use to most residents are paid for by Town taxes while luxuries such as “soft artificial turf, retractable lights for night games” and so on often aren’t.
You want those bells and whistles? Pay for them yourself. Don’t ask me to chip in.
This is why the Lincoln Center-on-the-Sound project is such an obscenity.
And to that, and i’m a huge sports fan ( go big blue), i say the other towns have spent too much. I’m no musician or theater person, but i’d rather have misra than a sports complex.
The overall field situation in Greenwich is an embarassment. Through neglect, lack of planning, lack of resources (!), lack of foresight – whatever- it’s just awful compared to other comparable towns. Travel to Darien, Westport, Wilton – you’ll be amazed at the difference. One can only conclude that the town’s will here was compromised over time by other, more vocal/better connected voices.
And how about the lack of drainage on the fields we do have? Today the sun was shining and the fields were closed….again.
You can have fun with a son, but you gotta be a father to a girl.
Just noticed driving by the Country Day fields on Fairfield that they have goalposts. Private property, yes, but I bet you could still kick there. We used to play there with impunity when we were kids. Of course, your point still stands.
I noticed that too yesterday.
And today too
It is never about the equipment. A new golf club does not make a hacker a par player, new tennis racquet does not make you Becker and a new football field does not make a better football team. In fact it might be the “rough” condition of the field that contributes to the teams performance.
Blind Brook football sucks. Fields don’t make a team.