Clarke gives Roosevelt a ride
While on the field, the Roosevelt and Clarke football teams were the fiercest of competitors last Sunday at the Carrier Dome. Getting to the field was a different story.
Because after a 275-mile trip to Syracuse that took more than five hours, it was the last 15 minutes that proved the most difficult.
Roosevelt was booked to play Clarke at the Syracuse stadium last weekend, the first time two Long Island football teams had ever played under a dome. But when coach Joe Vito exited the team hotel on Sunday at 8:45 a.m. to get on the bus and make the short trip to the Dome, he didn't like what he saw.
"It was like a gusher of antifreeze leaking from under the bus," Vito said.
The team had originally planned to get to the Dome at 9:15 a.m., giving it plenty of time to prepare ahead of the game's 11 a.m. start time. But it took until 10 a.m. to make the decision that the bus wasn't usable. Shuttles wouldn't be able to fit the entire team, and, while on the phone with an official at the Dome, Vito's dilemma led him to make an off-the-cuff remark.
"It was urgency," he said. "I had joked, 'Hey, maybe we'll call Clarke.'"
The official took it seriously and contacted Roosevelt's opening day opponents. Within minutes the Clarke team bus was transporting Vito's squad to the game. But they weren't out of the woods yet.
The team had to get its gear on before getting on the bus, and it only arrived at the Dome three minutes before game time.
"They told us, 'No matter what, when that clock hits zero, they're playing the game,'" Vito said. "Our guys had no time to think."
With rookie jitters and veteran butterflies equally unable to affect the team, Roosevelt won 26-18.
The game had been planned since June after a push for a Kickoff Classic set of weekends at the Dome featuring teams from all over the state. Vito, a football state representative, jumped at the chance to participate.
But the game, set on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, also had added impact.
"Being from Nassau, we were affected a lot more than some of the upstate teams," Vito said. "Without a doubt, we knew we represented Nassau and all the people we knew and families we knew who had members perish on 9/11."
