‘School ‘spirit day’ celebrates Newtown’s football champs.
Newtown championship victory prompts high school to throw allday celebration
NEWTOWN — Elation over the high school football team’s dramatic walkoff state championship win on the 7th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting spilled over into classrooms on Monday with a celebration of school spirit.
“They really deserved this win, especially after everything they had to overcome emotionally,” said schools Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue, who declared Monday school spirit day, encouraging students to wear school colors. “There were hugs and tears and highfives.”
The spillover celebration at school on Monday gave Newtown its first chance to toast its local heroes at home, after the undefeated team was featured on Sunday Night Football’s halftime show, and a video of the team’s lastsecond touchdown got 3 million hits online.
The story of Newtown’s lastsecond win over Darien, which continued to make national headlines on Monday, was all the more poignant because quarterback Jack Street was a fourthgrader at Sandy Hook School on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman massacred 20 firstgraders and six educators.
“It was the scariest moment of my life,” Street told Hearst Connecticut Media after the championship game.
One of Street’s slain classmates was Jack Pinto, the younger brother of Street’s teammate Ben Pinto, a linebacker for the state champion Newtown Nighthawks.
The team, which held hands to observe a moment of silence before taking the field, had to fight through the fog to tie the game at 7 in the fourth quarter, before taking the ball down the field for the final drive.
Street saw his receiver Riley Ward beat a defender to the sideline, and connected on a 36yard game ending touchdown that launched Newtown players into shouts of exhilaration.
“Oh my God!” shouted Newtown linebacker Jared Dunn.
The video footage, captured by Hearst Connecticut Media’s Pete Paguaga, spread the news across the state and across the country.
Newtown’s top elected leader, who spent Saturday morning at a spirited but solemn memorial observance, called the win a “glorious walkoff victory.”
“It was quite the battle, but they played their hearts out and they came out on top,” said Rosenthal, Newtown’s First Selectman, who wore a blue shirt and a gold tie on Monday to show his school spirit.
It was too soon to say what local celebration would be arranged for the football team, the president of the Newtown Board of Education said.
“We will wait to have the public BOE celebration on a date as yet to be determined (because) I think we may need a larger venue than our regular meetings,” said Michelle Ku.
“We are so incredibly proud of this team and the spirit with which they played this final game,” Ku said. “Their hard work this season paid off, and although not visible through the fog, I am sure there were some stars aligned.”