ND-Fairfield to play home games at SHU’s Campus Field
After playing its home games on the grass field located on campus, Notre Dame-Fairfield is getting an upgrade this fall. The Lancers will move their home football games across the street and call Sacred Heart University’s Campus Field home this season.
Notre Dame-Fairfield’s athletic director and head football coach John Johnson facilitated the opportunity for his team to use the facility beginning this season.
After experiencing a Friday night at Campus Field years ago, Johnson wanted to make it a more permanent thing.
“The plan after that going into the COVID season was to have all our home games there. Obviously, we didn’t have a season that year. Last year, Sacred Heart still was not letting outside entities use their facilities due to COVID protocols,” Johnson said. “When I took over as athletic director this summer, one of my first orders of business was to get that going.”
Following his hiring, Johnson reached out to Charlie Dowd, Sacred Heart’s deputy director of athletics along with external operations, to put together the scheduling.
The first home game for Notre Dame is scheduled for Sept. 23, when the team hosts Northwest Catholic.
Campus Field will mark the second facility shared between the two schools, following Park Avenue Field, which hosts both school’s soccer programs along with Notre Dame’s boy’s and girls’ lacrosse and softball teams.
While this is the second field the two schools will be sharing, there is no immediate plans for future collaboration.
As for Notre Dame’s grass field on its campus, it will remain as a practice field for the team.
Johnson has close ties to Sacred Heart, playing football for the Pioneers from 1996-1999. During his college career, he remembers
the program making the transition from a Division II program to Division I.
“I keep in close contact with coach Nofri and have a great relationship with him,” Johnson said. “One of the focuses of mine when I got hired as the athletic director was to continue to foster that relationship we have with Sacred Heart where any facilities that we either don’t have access to or are not up to our standards, we would be able to utilize over at Sacred Heart.”
Johnson remembers his recruitment process and recalls how Sacred Heart was growing exponentially – even 25 years ago. As he oversees half of the relationship between the schools, he knows how a positive experience can have an impact on a collegiate recruit, or in his case, a prospective student to the high school.
“Something that attracted me as a recruit on my visits to Sacred Heart was their plans when they just started, and they haven’t stopped continuing to expand,” Johnson said. “I think having Friday nights over there as big event games is only going to help
attract some more student athletes to our school.”
While Notre Dame gets the opportunity to play on a college field for its studentathletes, the partnership allows for Sacred Heart to sell itself to prospective students along with continuing the ever-building relationship between the two schools.
“Sacred Heart and Notre Dame Fairfield have been great neighbors and we’re glad we can continue the partnership,” said Sacred Heart athletic director Judy Ann Riccio. “There has been a lot of transformation to the campus over the last few years and this is a good
opportunity to showcase our beautiful campus.”
After a 2021 season in which the Lancers finished 8-3 overall, adding a change of scenery will bring added excitement to this season, which begins Friday at Stonington.
“I think people coming or thinking about coming to Notre Dame witnessing us playing on a Division I field on Friday nights and having that experience is something that’s attractive to prospective students and will build more momentum within our program to continue to get over the hump and win a state championship,” Johnson said.