Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

 

You know, the word fan is short for fanatic and if that doesn’t fit Kyle Lyddy to a T, then I don’t know what does.

Leading the charge at a CIAC Class LL state championship soccer game or regular season South-West Conference volleyball match, Lyddy is one reason – a very key reason – why school spirit at Newtown High School is so … crazy.

School spirit just EXPLODED last fall, but if you looked at how well most of the teams were doing (there were three SWC championships, for crying out loud) it was almost understandable. Gosh, hordes of fans were bussed to the boys’ soccer championship last November.

But ‘success’ can’t be the only reason why school spirit was so high because, heck, the combined record of the eight teams is 18-9-1 (as of this writing) and athletic director Gregg Simon says that school spirit is off the charts.

Lyddy’s irrepressible spirit has a lot to do with it, I suppose. So does his web site – nhsfans.homestead.com/about_us.html. As of this writing, the site has been hit 3,000 times already (truthfully, I refreshed the page three times to get it that high). With up to date results, standings, links to directions and weather related information, it is an essential site for all fans of Newtown High School sports.

Check the Fan Polls.

Check the Chants.

And – for heaven’s sake – check the Fundraising/Products link.

Let’s have some fun!

1 1 1

When I stopped up to see the Newtown High School boys’ soccer team pummel Stratford last week, it was only my second time on the new back fields and I gotta say – wow, what a fantastic job. The two soccer fields, side by side, are nearly perfect.

The first thing that struck me how much room is actually back there. The boys were playing on the field closest to the school, the jayvee girls’ soccer team was on the next field and waaaayyyyy over there was the football team (right where that big hill used to be).

What a marvelous facility. I keep having these visions of a nice, sunny spring weekend with two lacrosse games, a baseball game and a softball game all going on at the same time and a bunch of people selling concessions and although I know something like that most likely will never happen (imagine the scheduling nightmare!), at least NHS has the facility to pull it off.