Ron Moshier: Dolgeville-ND football showdown deserves better
For the third straight high school football season, Dolgeville and Notre Dame will play for Section III’s Class D East title on the final day of the regular season. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, this Week 7 matchup of two unbeaten and state-ranked teams won’t be seen by as many as it should be, and rain or shine, it won’t be played on the best of fields.
Because the lighting at Notre Dame High School’s Brother Vic Stadium is far less than adequate – the Jugglers haven’t played a night-time football game there since Week 3 because officials considered it too dangerous – the Dolgeville-Notre Dame game will be played at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Trouble is, even in the daylight, the field’s playing surface isn’t very good. Besides, there are several other key matchups in the area at the same time Saturday (Cazenovia at Westmoreland in another battle of unbeatens and Frankfort-Schuyler at
Dolgeville’s Blue Devils and Notre Dame’s Jugglers deserve better. It’s a prime time matchup of two very quick and talented teams that would be best played (for the good of the game) on an artificial surface, ideally on Saturday night (for the good of the fans). If only Saturday’s game could be moved to the evening, and played some place else – like
It would be the only game in town, it would draw hundreds of more fans than a 2 p.m. kickoff will, and it would be a better game.
posted by Ron Moshier at
8:37 PM
2 Comments:
I did not think that I would see the day that Ron Moshier would compromise an otherwise stellar Sports writing career by entering into the arena of politics. The only unfortunate side of this matchup is not the time of the contest, the weather, or field condition, but the fact that you have taken an unprovoked swipe at a school, its student body, and the Notre Dame community as a whole. Notre Dame is not the only school in this economically challenged valley to play on grass, it is not the only school to play on Saturday afternoon, and it is not the only school that is unable to construct a state of the art athletic field/complex. On the contrary, it is a school with just as much pride as any other. I fear that you have allowed yourself to be the "mouth piece" for those individuals who have wanted nothing more than to play another season a Proctor HS and lack the intestinal fortitude to approach the school with their concerns personally. This smacks of a group of individuals looking to build a ready excuse for a potential loss. What a shame. You are right in one respect... these young athletes deserve better than the treatment they received in this article.
ron is right on this one, when he takes issue with the field at notre dame it's because of safety concerns not politics. Having covered sports in this area before you find that people read too much into things and that's what drager1 did in their response. Ron is making the point that if this game were to be played on a field on friday night then it would be getting much more attention which is what these kids who have worked so hard deserve. In what part of that piece is Ron take a shot at the kids from either program??? In what part of that piece did politics get mentioned??? When did Ron ever criticize Notre Dame High School in that piece??? I must have missed something, all he said is that the field isn't in good condition which nobody can argue with and that it's a shame that the game which could turn out to be the best of the weekend won't get the billing that it deserves. I know what people like Ron go through trying to cover local sports in this area and It's a joke that every time someone like him tries to speak his mind that he has to worry about offending someone which he clearly didn't do in this story.
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