Fenwick football to move home games to remodeled Triton facility

By Jean Lotus Staff Reporter
The Triton College East Campus Athletic Complex, located at 2000 Fifth Ave.

The Triton College East Campus Athletic Complex, located at 2000 Fifth Ave.

When football season begins, the Fenwick Friars will have a brand new athletic facility for Friday night games at Triton College in River Grove.

In June, the Triton board approved a 10-year agreement with the Oak Park Catholic high school to rent Triton’s refurbished multi-purpose field for 89 hours a year for $420,000. Triton updated the East Campus Athletic Complex, located at 2000 Fifth Ave., last year as part of a campus-facilities overhaul paid for with a $53 million bond issue.

“Now all of our home games will be played at one place, which makes scheduling easier not only for our athletic department, but that of other schools in our conference, and for our parents and fans,” said Fenwick Athletic Director Scott Thies in a statement.

Fenwick Coach Gene Nudo played football for Triton in the late 1970s under Coaches Tom Crum and Ed Yonkus. Triton has since disbanded its football program.

“[Fenwick’s] football program will now have one place to call home, a place that our students and fans will know where we’ll be playing,” Nudo said.

The school’s football games had been played on rented fields at Oak Park and River Forest High School, Morton West High School in Berwyn and Elmhurst College. Fenwick had also been renting practice space at Concordia College and the Priory Fields at Dominican University in River Forest.

Originally purposed for soccer and lacrosse, the “multi-purpose field” was finished last summer with upgraded bathrooms and locker rooms, PA system and field lights and bleachers. The field is surrounded by a running track open to the public.

Fenwick will bring portable promotional materials and the black-and-white shield logo to “adorn the field with signage,” the school’s website said.

Fenwick also has the option to rent the field for other activities, including lacrosse, which has more Fenwick players than the football team, according to Mark Laudadio, Fenwick’s assistant director of sponsored events and alumni programming.

The first Fenwick home game will take place Aug. 26, when it plays Class 4A state champion Phillips Academy at 7:30 p.m.

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