Oxford varsity football is leaving its home on Pontiac Street in Oxford Village.
After 34 seasons of football at the Pontiac Street field, behind Oxford Elementary, the final football game was played there Friday. Next year the team will move to a new stadium at the new high school on N. Oxford Road.
The new stadium will include bleachers for 5,000 fans, all but eliminating the standing-room crowds that were fixtures at most Wildcat football games.
Football Coach Bud Rowley said there have been some great players, teams and championships on the Pontiac Street field, including a 1992 team that won a state title, but everyone is looking forward to moving to a new home.
“It’s time to move to a new field, so the fans can sit in the stands,” he said.
The typical standing-room-only crowd that came to see the final game on Friday, enjoyed one final beautiful night of football on the village field, which first saw football played there in 1969.
Next year, and in the future, the field will be used only as a soccer field, which will mean it will be widened and marked for soccer.
Prior to moving to the Pontiac Street field, Oxford varsity games were played in a field behind Daniel Axford Elementary School, also in the village.
Andy Vascassenno, who has worked football on the Oxford sidelines for 38 years, remembered the Daniel Axford site and recalled moving the home team bleachers from there to Pontiac Street.
The visiting team bleachers were constructed at the Pontiac Street site.
“There was a cinder track around the field over there,” he said of the DA site. “I remember when we put up the flagpole here and moved the bleachers here.”
Vascassenno said he was thinking about retiring after this season but said he now wants to remain at least another year so he can see the new field.
Helen Smith, who has attended 55 consecutive homecoming games, said she doesn’t remember the first game played at the Pontiac Street field, but is pretty sure she was there.
“I’m guessing I was at the first game because it was the first game here,” she said.
School officials acknowledged the last game at the field with a statement before the final game that noted the special place the field has in the lore of Oxford.
“The players who have played here will remember the great efforts of their colleagues. They will think back about a 49 yard field goal, the best defensive hit or the greatest run for a touchdown they ever saw,” the statement read. “The fans of today and long time supporters will cherish what took place.”
In addition to Coach Rowley, other coaches who saw action on the field included Walt Bruan, Al Armstrong, Tom Dana and Mike Buck.
“Like all places like this, it is not about the grass or the bleachers or the scoreboard but about the people and the memories they provide,” the statement read.
In what had has become a tradition, the Oxford football seniors walk the field hand-in-hand following their final home game of their careers. The 18 seniors on the team this year made the 50-yard walk on Friday.
There were tears among the players and some of their family and fans.
Some of the tears were for the loss to Linden in the final game at the field, but others may also have been a fond goodbye to the field that saw so many make the journey to manhood.