Column: Oxford Reminds Us What's Still Good About Sport

If you asked me a week ago what I think about athletics, I would have told you there is virtually nothing pure or genuine about sport any longer.

I would have talked about Lance Armstrong or steroids in baseball, which is once again making national headlines. Or I'd discuss pro football teams that seem more concerned about wins and money than the health of their players.

I would have rattled off a slew of teams whose greed sometimes makes me want to stop watching, including the Miami Heat and even my own favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees.

That is what I would have said last week. This week, my answer would change. I would talk about sportsmanship. I would talk about dedication. I would talk about class. That's because this week, of course, I would talk about the Oxford High School Wolverines.

I would tell you about players like Kyle Chudoba, Ashley Guillette and Bobby Costigan, players whom everybody expected to step up for their respective teams and who actually did when it counted (unlike some, who will remain nameless, who make, say, $29 million a year). I would not only tell you about what good players they and their teammates are, but also about what great people they are.

I’d also tell you about their parents, of whom they are a reflection. I’ve gotten to know many of them over the years, and they are not at all like those stereotypical parents who live vicariously through their children. No, these parents, and many others from Oxford, honestly just want their children to have fun, learn something valuable and create good memories.

Sure on Sunday afternoon it looked like Ken Chudoba was sitting on pins and needles behind home plate. But anyone who knows him will tell you it’s only because he wanted so badly for his eldest son – Oxford’s number one pitcher - to feel all joy and no pain. And Robbi Costigan told me Friday she was so happy for her son, Bobby, and his volleyball teammates, that it literally brought tears to her eyes (I’m sure she wasn’t the only one).

Such scenes filled the arenas in Shelton, West Haven and Middletown when Oxford took the court and fields this weekend. They reminded me that the most pure and genuine form of sport often happens far away from the ESPN cameras or big cities. They often happen in small towns across America, where student-athletes play for nothing more than the love of their sport and the camaraderie they enjoy with their peers.

“This is more than a team,” senior James Michaud told me following the baseball game.

“I love my team,” Guillette told me after striking out 15 in West Haven.

“This team is filled with incredible guys,” Costigan told reporters in Shelton after accepting his volleyball Class S tourney MVP award.

That word team has been dropped from the vocabulary of too many star players and pro athletes. But the Wolverines must be taught its meaning in English class, which they actually attend.

Oxford not only talked the talk, they went out and proved that the concepts of sportsmanship and team play, which the casual national news observer might think are dead, are taught every day in youth sports.

Make no mistake about it: we saw something last week that doesn’t happen everywhere or every day. We saw something magical. Three teams that won state championships, and five track and field athletes who won state titles, not only brought joy to a school that ended last year with tragedy after the death of sophomore football player Brandon Giordano, but also united a community that is divided at times by intense small town politics.

Those not involved in Oxford sports might say, ‘Sure, it’s easy to latch on to a winner, but what happens when their luck changes?’ To that I point to the boys' and girls' basketball teams, which don’t get many checks in the win column year after year. Yet game after game, the fans are there, cheering on their beloved Wolverines, who work as hard as any state champion.

And to the Oxford fans: kudos to you for your intensity. Admittedly, I’ve never appreciated when fans hold newspapers in front of their faces while the other team is announced – and not only because I’d rather people read Patch. But the students who did that before the volleyball game Friday night were the same fans who cheered their tails off when the announcer asked for a round of applause for runner-up Enfield. That was a classy move not often seen at Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park or anywhere else where you’ll pay an arm and a leg for tickets, plus maybe a couple of fingers for a meal and a drink.

So it is for the above-mentioned reasons that I thank our local high school athletes, fans and parents for showing the state how to win with class, and for reminding this cynical reporter where to look for all the best that sport has to offer.

Senior Local Editor Paul Singley runs the Oxford and Naugatuck Patch sites. Email him at paul.singley@patch.com.