The Garnets host the Red Hawks of Nyack at Nugent Stadium this Friday, October 28th at 7:00pm. Can’t make the game? Watch it online.
Miss our Rye Lifer interview with Rye football Coach Dino Garr? Read it!
For the game preview, we turn to the Steve “The OG” Feeney:
RYE’S GARNET & BLACK HOST THE BLACK & RED of the NYACK RED HAWKS (F/K/A INDIANS) – FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27 @ 7:00PM @ NUGENT STADIUM
In Rye’s quarterfinal playoff home opener, the Garnets host long-ago Rockland County adversary, the NYACK RED HAWKS, formerly known as the Indians. Teepee tales tell us that many moons ago these braves fearfully populated the Garnets schedules on an annual frequency. Fans recall that during this 2023 regular season the mid-season game with the Red Hawks, originally scheduled as a “home” tilt for Rye, was forced to relocate across the TZ Bridge to Nyack due to the flooding of the Nugent turf. The transition was seamless and the Red Hawk Athletic Department and Nyack School Administration deserve the thanks and gratitude of all Garnets for assuming game-day responsibility on such short notice. In recent years, both regular season games and playoff contests, Rye, with superior weaponry have ducked the Red Hawk talons and extended Rye’s series dominance to 15-5-0 (.750).
Mimicking the growing movement in professional and collegiate athletics to change nicknames and mascots to politically correct nomenclature, local high schools, assisted by edicts and threats from the New York State Department of Education, have followed that trend. Now Section One has the Ossining Pride, formerly the “O” and before that the Indians, the John Jay – Cross River Indians who now compete as the Wolves following a student-body referendum, and Mahopac’s Indians who are transitioning from Indians to the Wolf Pac. These transformations are costly, oftentimes involving replacement uniforms and helmets, new scoreboards, and even new turf field center medallions. In Mahopac the community had a choice – change the mascot away from Indians or be docked NYS Aid financial support. The outcome was obvious and the transition from Indians to Wolf Pac has commenced.
It will be a monochromatic experience Friday night as both teams sport uniforms of red, black and white. The Nyack Red Hawks soar into Nugent with talons primed for an upset of the Section One – 7th-ranked Rye Garnets. But on Friday night it is the Garnets who feather their Nugent nest. The Audubon Society says climate change is a threat to the Red Hawk’s survival. The Old Garnet advises that hawk habitats are safer on the Rockland side of the Hudson.
GARNETS TRIM THE HAWK TALONS – 35-7
