Kate Hunter, Editor-in-Chief
@khuntercourant
Members of the high school community are fortunate enough to enjoy the perks of hosting major sporting events on home turf. This fall, Dunning Stadium hosted both the annual Turkey Bowl football game and the semi-final football game in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) Class LL 2021 state championship. The high school’s auxiliary gyms host and welcome spectators to all indoor sports: basketball, volleyball, and wrestling. Although seldom properly recognized, a lot of work goes into hosting these events thanks to the extraordinary team of people that take care of campus.
Jay Egan, the high school’s athletic director, coordinates everything that happens before and after the games. “The high school custodial staff sets up everything inside the facility: tables, bleachers, and they keep the bathrooms clean, which are all really important,” Mr. Egan said. “The other group is the Parks and Recreation maintenance crew. There is also a fields committee in town, so there are three of us, myself, John Howe and Steve Benko, that have the responsibility for scheduling and maintaining fields.”
“John is the Superintendent of Parks and Steve is the Recreational Director,” Mr. Egan said. “We meet weekly and go over anything that needs to happen. Those two men are instrumental in helping me physically set up the site for the big games. We brush the carpet, blow the leaves, and put in fences.”
The custodial staff is primarily in-charge of the indoor set-up. “For basketball and volleyball season, we have to pull out bleachers and put the baskets down or up,” David Reyes, the building manager at the high school, said. “We have to make sure we set up the score table, chairs for the players, and garbage cans. Occasionally, we will pull the public address (PA) system out and someone will be in charge of hooking it all up.”
For big events, such as the Turkey Bowl though, the set-up process is altered. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into events like the Turkey Bowl,” Mr. Egan said. “You have to plan for the other support personnel that are on-site that people may not notice. We are usually here five hours before the games to get things ready. ”
“Anywhere between 4,000 to 5,000 people show up on Thanksgiving,” Mr. Reyes said. “That changes the whole dynamic of what we do; it calls for more staff members. Part of the time we make sure that we are patrolling the outside and making sure there is nothing out of the ordinary going on, but we also maintain the facilities, bathrooms, and kitchen areas during the game.”
The larger the event, the more clean-up time is required. “The amount of people that show up to a game determines the volume of trash,” Mr. Reyes said. “Parks and Recreation is responsible for cleaning up bleachers. Occasionally, we are asked to assist them in cleaning up Dunning Stadium, but normally clean up is pretty basic.”
The time spent cleaning up also allows the media to produce coverage quickly. “When we have big games there are a lot of reporters that aren’t just local,” Mr. Egan said. “They will want to stay in the press box because they need Wi-Fi access to write their stories. A lot of times, as a courtesy, we will leave the press box open for an hour and a half after the end of a game. It takes at least that long for the grounds people to clean up. Altogether, it’s a substantial amount of work.”
In light of this, it seems all the more important for Rams sports fans to lend a hand to those who namelessly contribute to the dependability of sporting events’ preparedness. “If everyone just picked up every variable and took care of their own square, essentially the trash all takes care of itself,” Mr. Reyes said. “ It just comes down to being more aware and more mindful.”
