Edward Little quarterback Jack Keefe tosses the ball to running back Drew Smith as they try to go around the end during the first quarter of the football game against Oxford Hills at Walton Field in Auburn on Oct. 1, 2021.. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal file
In the early 2000s, I worked at a bar in South Boston. One blustery November night, a customer said to me, “I’ve been all over the world and there is no time and place better than New England in the fall.”
Not only do I agree with this proclamation, but I posit that Friday nights in October at Auburn’s Walton Field are the living embodiment of its entire sentiment.
To this day, I can still remember the smell of the earth rising up under my cleats as if the grass and dirt were somehow abstractly establishing themselves as a pivotal part of a Red Eddies’ game plan. I’ll be darned if I don’t think of the faint odor of smoke wafting over from a nearby wood stove, ushering in a slight autumn chill on my skin every time I look at my old number 85 jersey.
Mike Richard
And it is a virtual certainty that whenever I see my condensed breath clouding under an array of halogen lights, I will be goaded into reminiscing about the sounds at Walton Field. Invariably, those sounds will be of helmets and pads cracking into one another as the raucous crowd cheers in the background.
From 1993 to 1998, I donned the maroon and gray as a tight end and defensive lineman for Don Morency’s Auburn Recs, Jeff Harper’s Freshmen Eddies, and Gene Keene’s Red Eddies. The discovery of football at the age of 14 saved me from a possible life of wayward insubordination by giving me an outlet into which I could pour my dedication and passion. It was the first undertaking I excelled at, and Walton Field was ground zero for this experience.
I learned the game from exceptional coaches like local legends Brad “Man Hands” Sloat and Steve “The Tank” Adamson. I had undeniably talented and devoted teammates like Calvin Hunter, who was an insanely dangerous running back, and with whom I was incredibly close. Adamson’s son and namesake, a hard-nosed fullback, taught all of us what mental toughness really was.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Hunter’s parents. They took me in as one of their own while my mother worked endless hours just to pay the rent. From everyone I mentioned to many who weren’t, I was able to extract and covet the fundamentals of loyalty, hard work and kinship.
I should note that even with her crazy schedule, no teammate of mine will ever forget Mama Richard’s high-pitched screaming on the sidelines or her pasta suppers on Thursday nights. Like everything on the football field, it was a group effort that helped guide me into adulthood.
And it all centered around Walton Field.
Alas, I have grown and times have changed. These days, I no longer strap on a helmet and shoulder pads in the fall. Instead, I pin on a badge and patrol a small town’s streets on Friday nights. Saturday afternoons see me and my wife chauffeur our four kids to various engagements about town.
Conversely, three-hour-long two-a-days in the blistering August heat no longer haunt young athletes desperate for a water break. No more do we treat concussions by “rubbing some dirt on it,” and getting back out there.
These parallels between my life and high school football in Maine were all necessary and inevitable evolutions. To that end, it is now also necessary to evolve past the antiquated patch of turf located in the hidden recesses of South Auburn. It’s time to give Edward Little High School’s ball players a field they can marvel over.
When the 2023 season opens at the new EL, that’s just what will happen. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be sad to see a part of my childhood fade into an autumnal demise.
Friday, Oct. 28, will be the final football game Edward Little plays at Walton Field. So, as the curtain closes on the place that epitomized my growth from a hard-headed boy into a man, I offer long-time EL announcer Bim Gibson one last electrified declaration to boom over the loudspeakers at the end of Mary Carroll Street: Last First Down at Walton Field, Red Eddies!
Mike Richard played football for various Auburn teams from 1993-1998, and was an Auburn police officer from 2007-2011. He is currently a police officer in New Hampshire, and lives in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children.
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