‘Community thankful football is coming back’
By Kevin Woodhouse
www.thesuburban.com
MacDonald High teacher Paul Rapagna has been an educator for many years, the last 14 at Mac, teaching physical education and mathematics. Rapagna has coached contact football at the university level but always had a dream of bringing it back to the high school.
“This will be my 25th year coaching and we are excited to be able to bring full contact football back,” Rapagna told The Suburban. “The community is thankful football is coming back.”
Last year, Rapagna applied for a government grant to help defray the almost prohibitive cost of restarting a football program from scratch. Having received $32,000 to get started, Rapagna and his fellow coaches have begun the task of teaching the players how to play the game at full contact complete with helmet and pads.
Rapagna credits the French school boards “for bringing contact football back and we can serve the off-island population where a lot of our students come from. Having football at the school will help prepare those students who want to play later in CEGEP.”
Spring practices have already begun although the snow is being stubborn as it has not all left the pitch but John Abbott College will allow the Ste. Anne de Bellevue based high school use of its synthetic field. May 26 will be the last spring practice before starting training with the 29-odd players in August to prepare for the upcoming six game season.
MacDonald High will have a juvenile team “or what is known as midget in the civil leagues,” said Rapagna.
As a way to help defray the cost of the program, the new football team will be holding a comedy night fundraiser on Friday, May 30 at Mac High located at 17 Maple in Ste. Anne de Bellevue. Montreal funnyman Joey Elias will serve as host for the proceedings. For tickets, call Jaime Guy at [514] 457-3770.
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