FRYEBURG – Fryeburg Academy’s football team hopscotched the puddles onto its field for Saturday’s Homecoming game against Mountain Valley wearing yellow jerseys.
Maybe all the tops didn’t fit quite right, but the color couldn’t have been more fitting. The garish, unfamiliar gold was a reminder of that maxim to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The shirts belonged to Lake Region High School, which is the Raiders’ most intense rival, if for no other reason than the fact that Bridgton and Naples are the next two towns you’ll encounter if you hit Route 302 in a southeasterly direction. In what would normally be the ultimate indignity, an NBA-inspired “Lakers” logo was stitched right beneath Fryeburg’s collective collar.
Tragedy trumped tradition this week, though, and for the rest of this season, Fryeburg will wear Lake Region’s jerseys with pride. Its blue socks, too.
When word spread that 50-year-old Gibson Gymnasium burned to the ground Wednesday morning, destroying virtually all Fryeburg’s uniforms and football equipment in the process, no fewer than 17 schools offered everything from jerseys to rolls of athletic tape to shoulder pads to a shoulder to cry on.
“We practiced Wednesday, without pads,” said Fryeburg coach Jim “Fuzzy” Thurston. “We came out here ready to run through some basic plays when we realized, wait, how are we gonna do that? We don’t even have a football. One of our players remembered that he might have one in the trunk of his car. He walked all the way to Main Street to get it.”
Coaches sorted through equipment Thursday and spent the afternoon distributing uniforms and fitting players for helmets.
Fryeburg took the field in the maroon pants of Gorham High School and a rainbow of helmets from Gorham, Lake Region, Bridgton Academy and Kennett High of North Conway, N.H.
Mountain Valley, a 56-0 winner when all was said and done, also offered its hand-me-downs. In its game program, Fryeburg thanked Poland, Madison, Jay, Dirigo, Scarborough, South Portland, Portland, Noble, Bonny Eagle, Westbrook, Deering and Old Orchard Beach for their expressions of support.
There were few traces of the Raiders’ traditional navy blue and white colors. But Fryeburg found the courage to play a game, and as a result, discovered friends in unusual places.
“We were a hodgepodge,” Thurston said. “But we are very grateful.”
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