By Kim J. Harmon

When the word first filtered down last week – first to the Newtown High School girls’ swim team on Thursday and then the rest of the school the following day – it quickly deflated a bouyant feeling of school spirit that had been building all week in preparation for the big Homecoming football game against Immaculate.

Greg Chion, 17, had lost a year-long battle with leukemia.

But amidst the mourning, there was a sense that the school had to carry on. Teams went to their respective practice fields on Friday because to do otherwise would give one two much time to dwell on the death of their friend.

Field hockey coach Kathy Davey said, “It was a tough day. I gave the kids the choice whether or not to practice and they wanted to practice. But some of them are taking it real hard.”

And although the pep rally was cancelled on Friday, the football game went on, with the Nighthawks playing with “heavy hearts,” according to coach Ken Roberts. “But these kids channeled their emotions into this game and used them to their benefit.”

It was a lesson coach Roberts learned some 15 years ago as a football player at Shelton High. Back in 1985, the team lost its quarterback, Ray Cervino, to cancer and Bob Riggio, the coach at the time, taught the players how to deal with the grief.

It was a lesson coach Roberts taught his kids last week.

“We were low because of the death of a friend,” said co-captain Matt McCarthy, “but we were thinking about his family and we knew we had to play to the best of our ability to win for him.”

The ‘Hawks defeated Immaculate, 34-20, and gave themselves an excellent shot at both a South-West Conference and CIAC Class L tournament berth. But the win and the halftime festivities (the cheerleaders, the Markettes, the band and the class floats) were not without a lot of emotion, a lot of tears.

Greg was a drum major in the NHS marching band and one of the scaffolds that holds one of the student conductors during the halftime performance was garnished with a banner that said, OUR ANGEL GREG CHION.

 

A flagpole will be erected, thanks to the Newtown Blue & Gold Booster Club, right near the new scoreboard in memory of Greg Chion.