FREAKY FRIDAY: EVERY THING WILL BE NEW AT DE LA SALLE

By JOHN MILLEA, Star Tribune

For as long as anyone can remember, the football routine at DeLaSalle has been the same: Practice on a small patch of grass behind the school and ride a bus to another school's field for every game.

This season, and every season to come, is different. After five years of planning, fundraising and high-profile struggles with forces opposed to building a stadium on school grounds, DeLaSalle's long sought-after football/soccer playground is ready to go.

It will be christened with girls' and boys' soccer games Thursday, and the big coming-out party will be Friday night, when the Islanders play host to Brooklyn Center in the first home football game in the school's 109-year history.

"It's a big honor because so many people have waited for this for so long and now we will be the first ones to enjoy the field," said senior nose guard Peter Ringham. "There were so many people who wanted to play that first game, and it's going to be us."

This week, the anticipation is at full zenith.

"Everything will be the first," said senior linebacker Scott Hillyer. ''The very first touchdown, the first sack. Everything will be the first."

The stadium has natural grass, so the only downside now is that the Islanders have to jump on a bus and travel to practice in a city park a couple of miles upstream along the Mississippi River. But that's a small price to pay for the luxury of playing real home games.

"When we first started this project, none of these guys attended DeLaSalle," said school president Brother Michael Collins. "It was really important for us to create for DeLaSalle students some of the basic amenities that most young athletes in high school in the metro area enjoy."

Collins was sitting with some of the football players as he spoke about what the stadium means to Islanders past, present and future.

There's not a kid in this room who doesn't deserve what is so basic in the high school experience of tens of thousands of high school-age kids in this metro area," he said. "This is not something that is so fantastic, but it's become that for us."

The struggle to build the facility, in Collins' words, "was long, it was arduous, it was stressful." Some nearby residents, who share Nicollet Island with DeLaSalle, threw up every conceivable legal roadblock. The school's legal fees totaled half a million dollars.

It all led to a stadium -- DeLaSalle Athletic Field -- with permanent seating for 750, but temporary bleachers brought in for Friday's game will bring the seating capacity to 1,500.

Islanders coach Sean McMenomy said he feels like the luckiest coach in the world. He accepted the job last spring, leaving Minneapolis Southwest after four years. The Islanders are a Class 3A power, finishing as the state runner-up the past two years.

One day last week, McMenomy and several of his players walked around the new field before heading to practice. With the downtown Minneapolis skyline framing the scene, the Islanders' shoes left fresh imprints on the thick, green grass.

"This is a dream," McMenomy said.