New Haven area athletes stay toplay for Elis

JULIA TiERNAN/YH Peter Mazza, JE'01. is one of the many Yale athletes from the New Haven area who chose to stay in town to continue their athletic careers.

Between the tearing down of Maple Cottage and the facelift on Broadway, Yale just will not stop tinkering with New Haven. Almost every week it seems that there is some new development in the New Haven-Yale town-gown relationship. One of Yale's most valuable assets, however, in bringing the Greater New Haven community together is its athletes. Its athletes?

Top college sports programs thrive on recruiting local kids. Each year, the state of Florida has three top-notch college football teams because the nation's largest pool of recruits is in its backyard. Big East teams are consistent basketball powerhouses because they tap the athletic resources of large northeastern cities. Such teams pack their stadiums with local fans who come to see their high school heroes continue their careers.

So where does that leave the Yale athletics program? According to Peter Mazza, JE '01, a 6' 1'' linebacker from Cheshire, Conn., just a few miles north of New Haven, it leaves Yale in a fantastic situation. "There's definitely a lot of talent in Connecticut high school football," Mazza said. He admits that he and the other locals who are on the squad, Matt Proto, BR '01, an offensive lineman from Hamden, Conn., and Tim Penna, BK '02, a defensive lineman from Branford, Conn., often take flack for not coming from big high school programs in Florida or California like most of the other players on the team. According to Mazza, Connecticut has, per capita, some of the best football players in the country. And Yale has the upper hand in recruiting them. "Playing football at Yale gives locals a real hometown feeling," Penna said.

Unlike most colleges, Yale's national recognition allows it to recruit across the country and around the globe. While Yale still recruits mostly from outside Connecticut, Yale coaches have recently been turning their attention to local athletes like Penna, Proto, and Mazza. Mazza says he has seen an increase in the number of local football recruits since coach Jack Siedlecki took over three years ago. "Coach Siedlecki has definitely made it a point to look locally for talented players," Mazza said.

Football isn't the only sport that recruits locally. Many teams have at least one local athlete on the roster, including Brian Lavin, PC '02, from Guilford, Conn., on the soccer team; Marko Lujic, TC '02, from North Haven, who plays lacrosse; and Catherine Wetmore, JE '02, from Branford, on the women's crew team.

As Yale has stepped up its local recruiting efforts, local athletes, in turn, have become more receptive to staying at home to play. Lujic says that when he started high school, no serious athlete from his school, Hamden Hall, a private local athletic bastion in nearby Hamden, would look at Yale. "Yale didn't carry the most respected athletic tradition," Lujic said. Lately, however, that has been changing. "The athletic scene has been publicized a little more now. Yale's reputation has definitely gone up. Now that the athletic teams here are improving considerably, more notice is being taken," Lujic said.

Local fans are taking more notice as well. Lujic says that at any given game he'll have about 10 people who attend to watch him play; mostly they consist of his family and friends from high school.

For this week-end's game against Valparaiso, Mazza had to scramble in order to reserve 26 tickets, quite a chore since each team member is only allotted four tickets per game. Hopefully, this upward trend will continue, and will continue to reap benefits for Yale teams.

Ultimately, Yale may do more to improve town-gown relations by recruiting athletes than by recruiting chain stores for Broadway. Snagging local athletes helps Eli teams, and getting New Haven residents in the seats at sporting events diminishes the bitterness many may feel toward the University. Athletes can help bring Greater New Haven residents into the city. Even Starbucks can't claim to do that.

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