It’s nice to identify with greatness. We don’t get to do it very often. Our leaders don’t seem to be truly great anymore – not since FDR or maybe Ike, before he went into politics. And even if they were great, who can identify with George W. Bush or Al Gore? It sometimes seems that they don’t even have identities other than that artificial sheen they get from their focus groups. So when ordinary people come along and do some extraordinary thing – something great – they become an irresistible vehicle by which we can project our own ordinary selves into greatness. It happened right here in Newtown in 1976 with Bruce Jenner.

Like the rest of the country, we were euphoric when Bruce Jenner won the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. And since he had spent a couple of years here in Newtown, graduating from Newtown High School in 1968, we could claim him as our own hometown hero. In 1976 we christened the NHS football field Bruce Jenner Stadium, and we were rewarded by being included in Mr Jenner’s busy post-Olympic schedule of public appearances. He came to town to receive the honor and departed, never to return.

Bruce Jenner’s subsequent career as Wheaties box icon, unsuccessful actor, and infomercial spokesman, along with his personal struggles with his marriages, have brought less and less reflected glory to Newtown over the years. Then, three years ago when all of Newtown seemed to be pitching in to make a major improvements at Jenner Stadium, the head of the NHS Blue and Gold Club sought out Mr Jenner to ask if he would make at least a nominal donation – even $25 or so – to lend his name to the effort. The request was unceremoniously rejected. In a town where generosity to civic causes is second nature, suddenly no one could identify with Bruce Jenner anymore.

Now that the stadium at the high school has been remade with new lights, a new scoreboard, and a new concession stand, it’s time the high school renamed the stadium. Some are suggesting a return to something generic like the “Blue and Gold Stadium,” celebrating the school’s colors. But we still think it’s nice to identify with greatness.

Our fling with Bruce Jenner has helped us realize that true greatness lies close to home. True celebrity may thrive in Hollywood, or Madison Avenue, or inside the DC Beltway, but greatness grows best where hearts and lives open to others – and that may, in the end, be the best definition of a community. We don’t have enough toes and fingers to count the heroes in our hometown – in the ambulance association alone! In every area of our community’s life, greatness has arisen. Not only can we identify with them, they have shaped our identity as a town.

The Newtown High School stadium serves as an emblem for sports in our town, and in the area of athletic endeavor, there is one name that stands out above all others: Harold S. DeGroat. Coach DeGroat, who died in 1973, was the first to be inducted into the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. In 1944, he became the town’s first physical education instructor and established a tradition of discipline and success as the longtime coach of the high school’s  football, basketball, and baseball teams. He lavished as much attention on non-athletes as accomplished athletes, always preaching the virtues of physical fitness for every child. He was involved in scouting, Rotary, teen programs, and he was responsible for the town’s first playgrounds. He was kind and understanding and was idolized by children and parents alike.

We wish Bruce Jenner luck wherever he chooses to seek fame and celebrity, and we thank him for the momentary thrill he brought to our town. But we think the crowning improvement for the Newtown High School stadium would be to name it the Harold S. DeGroat Stadium.