Geibel prepares to play first football game ever on its own field
Within the last month, the Geibel Catholic football team went from possibly playing an entire season on the road to having a field it truly can call home. That whirlwind month will bear fruit at 2 p.m. Saturday, when the Gators host Beth-Center in the first football game ever to be played at the site of Geibel Catholic High School in Connellsville.
“We’ve talked about this for seven or eight years,” Geibel Catholic principal Vincent Mascia said. “But it was just an idea. Whenever we would come together to discuss it, we could never decide exactly what we wanted to do or how we would go about doing it.”
The Connellsville Area School District inadvertently gave the Geibel Catholic community all the incentive it needed. The playing surface at Connellsville Stadium had to be re-seeded and the district wasn’t sure it could play its own games at home, let alone allow Geibel Catholic to use the facility as well.
“Where would we go if Connellsville would not be available?” football coach Angelo Dippolito said. “We looked into a couple of other places, including Greensburg Central Catholic, our sister school, but all of them would have been a bus ride. We just decided that it would be better to play our home games at home.”
“Connellsville really got us going,” Mascia said. “That was about three weeks ago, so we’ve been quite busy since then.”
At least for this season, Geibel Catholic converted its football practice field into a playing field. Bleachers have been installed, goal posts have been erected, a press box is being built and a concession stand and portable restroom facilities will be in place by Saturday.
“The most impressive thing to me has been the way the community has come forth and supported this project,” Mascia said. “And it hasn’t just been their monetary donations, which have been very generous, but also the time they have spent here doing the work.”
Mascia said the list of donors is too numerous to list, but noted that the only purchases made by the school have been goal posts and a scoreboard. Some bleachers already are on site for Saturday’s game, but Mascia said more have been ordered, thanks to donations.
“This is a perfect opportunity for us to see what our assets are and develop them,” Mascia said. “In that sense, this is a first step. Really, we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what we hope to do here. We’re shooting for five years to have the project completed.”
Geibel Catholic will invest the money it used to pay to rent Connellsville Stadium, as well as money it used to spent to rent a field at Menarcheck Soccer Complex in South Union Township, plus fees to rent buses for home soccer games. Geibel Catholic’s boys and girls soccer teams also will play home games on site.
“We can’t wait,” Mascia said of Saturday’s big game. “The reaction from our alumni in general and alumni football players has been tremendous. Everybody is behind us.”
That includes Dippolito.
“It means a whole lot to be able to play your home games at home,” Dippolito said. “All of our kids, our coaches and our whole school are all anxious for this. This is what we’ve all wanted here for a long time.”
Dippolito noted that three of his assistant coaches – Brian Henckel, George Mikluscak and Jason Bandemeer – played football at Geibel Catholic and take particular pride in being a part of this important step.
“A lot of money, time and effort has already gone into our football and soccer programs and I’m sure a lot more will go into them,” Dippolito said. “We have plans to get regular stadium seating in, but not until at least next year.
“And, yes, we will someday have lights here. Everybody wants to play football games on Friday nights, but we have to crawl before we can walk. There will be some inconveniences that people will have to deal with, but I look for us to be here forever.”
There isn’t a better place to be forever than home.