News

Letter: Supporting Youth Sports and Fitness through the Ram Spirit Fund

By |

Dear Editor,

I’m writing to bring attention to a broad based community wide effort to improve our athletic fields. I invite every New Canaan resident to step forward and support the Ram Spirit Fund (RSF) Capital Campaign in progress now. The RSF represents a new collaborative effort that links our High School athletic program with various youth sports organizations with a shared vision to enhance our town’s athletic complex to meet current and future needs. Organizations coming together to create the Ram Spirit Fund include the NC Rams All Sports Booster Club, New Canaan Youth Football, New Canaan Soccer Association, New Canaan Youth Field Hockey and New Canaan Lacrosse Association. Phase 1 of this campaign seeks to raise Two Million Dollars to cover the cost of creating two new turf fields located between the current Water Tower Turf Field and Dunning Stadium (one full size regulation field and one smaller practice field), along with the re-surfacing of the Dunning turf.

News

Ram Spirit Fund: Formal Planning, Fundraising Efforts Underway for Two New Turf Fields at NCHS

By |

Nearly two years after receiving municipal approvals, a plan to create two additional turf athletic fields at New Canaan High School is gaining momentum this week, as a website, formal fundraising effort, renderings and timetable for the project have materialized. Through the newly created “Ram Spirit Fund,” a committee that includes the NCHS athletic director, recreation director of the town and officials from youth field hockey, football, lacrosse and soccer groups are seeking to raise $2 million by the end of this month. With those funds in hand, the committee would put the project out to bid in May, start work in June and have the fields ready for when the next academic year kicks off in September, according to a timetable published on the website. The fields would be located across the parking lot from Dunning Field, running from the tennis courts toward Waveny. Nick Williams—both a selectman who voted in favor of the project in July 2013 and a longtime youth sports parent who has launched a website dedicated to NCHS soccer teams—said the new turf fields are “something we need in town.”

“One of the trends continuing trends that we’re seeing in New Canaan is really the explosion of girls’ sports.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

By |

New Canaan readers voted by a 7-to-2 margin in favor of a proposal that would see the Pop Up Park in the final block of South Avenue in place continuously from Memorial Day to Labor Day. ***

Four longtime New Canaan friends and NCHS grads gathered to cheer on the Rams last Monday during the varsity boys basketball team’s Senior Night game vs. St. Joe’s. Pictured at left—standing in front local legend Wilky Gilmore’s jersey—are Tad Keating, Monroe Trout, Rob Lenihan and Matt Ready.

News

Youth Cheerleading Regroups, with an Eye on Boosting a Flagging Varsity Program

By |

Under new leadership, youth cheerleading in New Canaan is finding its way out of a rather dark period of infighting, free-for-all amateur coaching and, among older middle-school aged girls, a lack of excitement and incentive to continue in the sport, officials in the program say. Led since last summer by a certified coach who is injecting the program with more fun events, a first-ever awards ceremony, recruiting strategy, closer alignment with youth football and focus on fundamentals, one of the largest groups of cheerleaders that New Canaan has seen in some time is coming up through the pipeline. “If we don’t clean up the youth side, you are never going to have a high school program, so we are cleaning up and made huge strides,” said Sondra Banford, youth cheer coordinator in New Canaan. “Our major goal is to create a cheer family.”

As Banford alluded, the boost in cheerleading at the middle school level couldn’t come at a better time for a high school program whose numbers are decidedly down. Athletic Director Jay Egan said the goal typically is to have 18 to 20 girls on the cheerleading squad, and that currently it’s down to 10 or 11.

Government

Town Pursues Mandatory $20 Per-Player ‘Fields Usage’ Fee from Private Youth Sports Groups

By |

Seeking insight into the true membership numbers and financials of private organizations that run youth sports in New Canaan, town officials plan next year to make mandatory a $20 per-player “fields usage” fee. Led by Park & Recreation Commission Chair Sally Campbell and Selectman Nick Williams and launched through the Youth Sports Committee, the move is designed, in part, to usher New Canaan toward a system where basic upkeep of playing fields is accounted for through above-the-line payments rather than private contributions. In the past, the town had no oversight of the financials of groups that oversee sports such as youth football, lacrosse, baseball, soccer and field hockey, Campbell said during the committee’s Jan. 29 meeting. As a result, she said, “we had groups that ended up having big cash reserves because they were collecting fees way in excess of what they needed to use.”

“So our point to them was, look, you know parents aren’t going to question the fee—because they want their kid to participate, they want them to make the A team and nobody would question it,” Campbell said at the meeting, held in the Art Room at Lapham Community Center.