By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

FRYEBURG – Firefighters were still trying to put out the blaze that destroyed Fryeburg Academy’s venerable Gibson Gymnasium Wednesday morning when members of the football community began rallying around Jim “Fuzzy” Thurston’s team.

“The first person I heard from was (head coach) Jimmy (Aylward) at Mountain Valley, offering equipment,” the school’s varsity football head coach said.

Before the day was over, coaches and athletic officials from Lake Region, Poland, Gorham, Jay, and Kennett (North Conway, N.H.) high schools, as well as Bridgton Academy and even Babson College, had offered to help the athletic department recover from the devastating fire.

“It’s a total loss,” said Fryeburg Academy athletic director Todd Gallagher. “We’ve had an unbelievable response, an unbelievable turnout and offering from those schools.”

About the only thing salvaged were soccer, cross country and field hockey uniforms that athletes regularly take home for cleaning, Gallagher said.

“We’re going under the assumption that any storage (in the gym) was gone. Anything that was in there has been lost,” he said. “With the exception of those fall teams, we have to start from ground zero.”

The losses also include all of the school’s physical education equipment, as well as all of the athletic department’s records and files, Gallagher said.

Athletes also lost personal items stored in their lockers.

“The kids lost cleats (and) all of their body armor,” said Thurston, who is also a dean of students at the school. “They lost all of their personal gear, so they were bumming.”

Gallagher said it was too early to put a figure on the department’s losses. Thurston estimated the football program’s losses to be somewhere around $30,000 to $40,000.

“We lost everything, right down to the whistles,” Thurston said. “We had practice this afternoon and a couple of my assistant coaches went out to round up some stuff. When we started practice, we didn’t have a ball, so one of our kids got a ball out of his car.”

The football field, only a few yards from the gym, was not damaged, and the Raiders’ homecoming game scheduled for Saturday afternoon is still on.

“We’re going to play Saturday,” Thurston said. “We’re going to be struggling for locker room facilities. We’re going to change in some of the garages that are there and do the best we can.”

Aylward contacted Thurston shortly after hearing about the fire on the radio Wednesday morning.

“I’ve known all season that it was their homecoming and that they were planning on honoring their 1963 (Class C) and 1965 (Class B) state championship teams,” Aylward said, “so we just wanted to help them and give them a chance to compete.”

Thurston spent much of the day fielding calls from Aylward and coaches from other schools offering extra football uniforms and equipment. In fact, by Wednesday night, Thurston said he was having to turn some offers down because “I’ve got more equipment than kids to give it to.”

“We’ll be a hodgepodge of different colors (Saturday),” he said. “We’ll be maroon and gray and light blue and dark blue and gold. We’ll be a coat of many colors, but we’ll do our best.”

Thurston said that other than likely having to cancel Monday’s JV game, the rest of the football schedule should go off without a hitch. The other fall teams should also be able to finish their seasons with only minor changes to their schedules, according to Gallagher.

“The MPA was gracious enough to give us a waiver to play our final field hockey game (today), and soccer will play (today), Friday and Saturday,” Gallagher said.

School officials won’t have much time to wrap up the fall season before the winter schedule begins next month. Gallagher said the school needs to procure practice sites for the basketball and wrestling teams and find a place to host home games and meets. It is considering an offer from the Fryeburg Fair Association to add a wooden floor to one of the buildings at the fairgrounds for basketball practices, and Gallagher also plans to call some local schools to arrange use of their facilities for home games. The school does not want to play all of its games on the road this winter, he said.

Besides losing some equipment, the ski teams season should not be disrupted, nor should the cooperative club hockey team Fryeburg Academy has started with Kennett, he added.

Ironically, the school recently kicked off a capital campaign to build a new multi-purpose facility that will include a gymnasium. While the fire will hasten that process, Gallagher said Fryeburg Academy athletics will be scrambling to keep their programs operating smoothly for the rest of the school year.

“We just would ask that everyone have patience with the fact that we’re going to have a winter that’s in turmoil,” he said. “Whatever was routine before is no longer going to be routine. Everyone is going to have to have patience and understanding.”