Bits & Pieces

“Let There Be Light!”

By Kim J. Harmon

Wow – the Newtown High School gymnasium looks less like a squalid basement closet these days and more like a place where physical education classes and competitive games of volleyball and basketball could be played without threat of eyestrain to students, teachers, athletes or the general public.

I was simply amazed when I walked in for the volleyball team’s season opener against Tolland a couple of weeks ago and found I could actually take a picture without resorting to a super high speed ISO or a flash. It reminded me of when the gym was first refurbished some time ago, when a new paint job, a new floor and new lights made the place seem almost like a palace.

From what I understand, though, the type of lights that had been installed then began to diminish as soon as they were turned on for the first time and the place simply got darker and darker as time wore on until it became dingier than it probably had ever been before.

Now – well, the place is well lit. But all that really does is shed some fresh light and make more obvious the problems that still plague the gymnasium.

There are, of course, the structural problems. Green tarps cover up the vents that have been leaking for years and people have even been posted on the sidelines during basketball games, with towels in hand, to wipe up droplets of water off the floor.

And then there are the low-hanging ventilation ducts (not to mention the tarps) that have turned volleyball matches, in particular, into something more familiar to fans of arena football or indoor soccer (it’s no secret why the Lady Nighthawks take the court on the near side of the gym in the first game of a volleyball match; the duct on the far side is much more obtrusive).

Picture this – in the season-opening volleyball match, a Tolland defender bumped a serve up so high that the ball rolled onto the tarpaulin hanging under one vent, rolled around for a second or more, rolled back out and was kept alive. That may have perturbed Tolland a little but certainly no more than the dozen or so points the Lady Eagles lost by slamming the ball off the low-hanging duct on the other side of the court.

The Lady Nighthawks hardly ever hit the ducts anymore while other teams are forced to practice it during warm-ups.

I’d be surprised if Tolland agreed to return to Newtown.

I would be flabbergasted if the South-West Conference ever agreed to play a tournament semi-final or championship game at Newtown High.

It is kind of odd, when you think about this: There is no question that Newtown High School has the best stadium facility in the SWC (and probably one of the best in the state, thanks to Carl Samuelson and his Parks and Recreation Department crew) but at the same time it has the shabbiest gym in the SWC through no fault of anyone’s except the inexorable passage of time.

Hey, the place has a lot of great memories for me – like one of my first experiences at a Newtown-Masuk girls’ basketball game decided on a missed layup at the buzzer, watching school scoring records get eclipsed and watching Bobby Pattison win one of the greatest wrestling matches ever – but I won’t be sorry to see it revamped in the wake of this proposed $50 million high school expansion plan.

I’m looking forward to some new digs.

And I ain’t the only one.

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I love the idea of a turf field at Blue & Gold Stadium – I really do – but with that said, the field has never looked better than it did last Friday night for Newtown’s South-West Conference battle with arch-rival Brookfield.

Never.

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It is astounding, really, at how the list of Newtown High School athletes playing collegiate ball this fall continues to grow.

There was that initial group of athletes going to Division I or other high-level soccer or football programs around the country and then there was that next group of athletes – some of whom moved onto college very quietly.

The list, right now, with the knowledge that Nicole Sieber of Newtown – a graduate of Immaculate High School – is now playing soccer at Western Connecticut State University has grown to nearly three dozen.

Three dozen.

And that’s just for the fall athletes – the former football, soccer, field hockey, swimming and volleyball stars of Newtown.

There are far fewer local athletes playing winter and spring sports, for sure, but all told there are more than 50 former Newtown athletes playing collegiate sports (that doesn’t even count the handful that are playing club sports, like rugby).

I think astounding covers that all pretty nicely, don’t you?

*By the way, if you son or daughter does not appear in the Collegiate News segment that will be published from time to time in these pages, please drop a line to sports@thebee.com or simply call me at 426-3141. You can also get a jump on things by letting me know who is swimming or playing basketball, baseball, lacrosse or tennis in college.