DHS Scoreboard Approved, Part of $7.5M Fundraising Effort

The Darien Athletic Foundation has bought a $200,000 scoreboard for Darien High School with video capabilities that could let spectators see replays and closeups of action on the main football field.

Potentially it could show parents closeups of their children receiving diplomas at graduation time, just as the scoreboard for New Canaan High School does now.

"The hope is that the kids really buy into it, utilize it and make it work with their own production team," said Peter Graham, president the foundation.

The scoreboard, which will be put in a different spot from the present one and face away from nearby houses, was ordered on Tuesday, after the Representative Town Meeting became the final town board to accept the gift from the young foundation.

Graham said on Thursday that the foundation hoped to have the installation of the scoreboard start within two weeks in order for it to be installed by the beginning of the next school year.

The foundation hopes to get the building constructed starting right after Thanksgiving, so that it can be ready for the spring sports season. The planned improvements for the sports fields would start after the graduation ceremony in 2014, Graham said.

Foundation officials are calling the overall improvements plan "Making Every Day a Sunny Day," with the shorter version of the name, "The Sunny Day Project."

The Darien Athletic Foundation was incorporated in December and approved as a 501(c)3 charity by the IRS in January (meaning donations to it are tax deductable).

Big plans

The scoreboard is only the first part of a series of improvements the Darien Athletic Foundation plans for sports facilities at Darien High School and Middlesex Middle School. 

Last week, foundation officials described an $800,000 building they plan to donate to the high school with space for game ticket sales, restrooms and possibly a concesssion stand. But the biggest part of a $7.5 million project to improve athletic facilities would be spent on playing fields.

At the high school, the foundation wants to expand some artificially turfed fields to allow them to be used by more sports teams. Bleachers for spectators likely would also be added at two fields. At the middle school, artificial turf would be added to a field.

A total of $5.8 million of the expected $7.5 million cost would be for construction, with the rest (about $1.7 million) used as an endowment for ongoing maintenance.

Tickets building

Foundation officials recently described to the Board of Education the small building for ticket sales, bathrooms and a possible concession stand that would sit not far from where the present scoreboard is located.

Previous plans have been scrapped to have a breezeway between the large "booth" for sales of tickets and possibly food and drinks on one side and bathrooms on the other.

Now a roofed-over outdoors space will be around what foundation officials describe as a smaller building than originally planned (because when officials looked over the site, they decided it just wasn't big enough for the original idea).

The roofed-over area will allow kids waiting for rides to stay in a spot where they can stay relatively dry if it rains, Graham said. The bathrooms should be more convenient for spectators to use, especially during big events like the Turkey Bowl, he said.

A secure spot for ticket sales was a priority that school officials had for the building, and the structure will be able to handle sales of food and drink if school officials want that, he said.

Improvements to fields

The bulk of the Sunny Days project will be improvements to fields at the high school, including some expansion of the fields at the south end of the campus (near the entrance from Noroton Avenue) and in the northeast corner of the campus (east of the prominent stadium field and north of the varsity baseball field):

• The "Upper Oval" field close to Noroton Avenue (and next to the softball field), would be expanded a bit, and an existing walkway would be removed, Graham said. A retaining wall would replace a sloped area currently between two fields to allow for expansion of the Upper Oval field, making it a large enough field to be regulation size for field hockey, girls and boys lacrosse, soccer and football, he said. (The largest required field for any youth sport is for girls lacrosse, he said — the required field is even larger than for boys lacrosse.)

• The "Middle Oval" field next to the Upper Oval may also be expanded if the school district works out a plan to replace the turf, Graham said. The current turf on that field isn't holding up well and district officials may get a replacement under the warranty for the field, he said.

• The practice field next to the Middle Oval field (in the southeast corner o the campus) would also get some improvements, Graham said, along with the "Stadium East" field in the northeast corner of the campus.

• A field to the west of the high school building, near where buses drop off and pick up students, could possibly be upgraded to allow for more sports games, he said.

• An engineering company hired by the foundation reviewed the fields both at Darien High School and Middlesex Middle School, where a field may be turfed, Graham said. Tighe & Bond (headquartered in Westfield, MA) found that the middle school field was not built over a rock ledge, as had been feared, Graham said, so laying down artificial turf there is feasible.