Valley sports fans recognize the Greyhound as a symbol of Naugatuck High School ...

By now, you’ve probably seen the pun-tastic headlines: “Car Company Rams Florida High School,” read one on the Web site of Miami’s NBC affiliate. If you haven’t, the gist of the story is this: Lake Mary High School agreed Feb. 9 to discontinue use of its ram’s head logo, after Chrysler threatened a trademark infringement suit because the school’s emblem is identical to that of Dodge.

“It’s not a case of not wanting to fight [Chrysler],” Lake Mary Principal Michael Kotkin told National Public Radio. “My boss, if you will, at the county level, as well as our county lawyers, felt that this wasn’t something that we would be able to win, quite frankly. And the school resources being directed towards law rather than to the students, rather than to the educating of our students, really doesn’t seem to make good sense.”

Not that bowing to Chrysler’s demand will be free either. Kotkin estimated replacing the high school’s gym floor, which bears the logo, will cost $15,000. And, of course, the school must also pay to revamp everything from its uniforms to its official letterhead.

This is an alarming occurrence to any Naugy sports fan who’s ever noticed NHS’ Greyhound mascot looks like it could have sprinted straight off the side a Greyhound bus.

“It’s crossed my mind when I’m passing a bus on the highway,” Naugatuck Athletic Director Tom Pompei acknowledged. “If we ever got called on it, I think we’d have to walk away. Number one, we don’t have the money to fight a big company like that, and number two, they’d probably win.”

Now, let’s make a couple things clear here: First, no one is suggesting Naugatuck High stole Greyhound Bus Lines’ logo. Pompei is unsure of the Hound’s origins, as is Ed Mariano, the eponymous godfather the school’s gymnasium. As he recalls, NHS picked up the nickname Greyhounds because of its fast-paced boys’ basketball teams of the 1930s and 1940s but did not use the image during his playing days. Former Naugatuck Historical Society President Bridget Mariano did some research and found the first use of the name Greyhounds in the school’s 1938 yearbook and the first appearance of the dog itself on the cover of the 1950 edition. Is it possible that yearbook staff of six decades ago copied the canine? Sure, but there’s nothing to prove it.

Second, Greyhound Bus Lines has never told Naugy to drop the pooch, and there’s no indication it will.

... but it's very similar to the logo of Greyhound Bus Lines, which calls its running dog "one of the most-recognized brands in the world."

But, based on last month’s developments in Florida, what’s to stop the bus company—which boasts on its Web site, “The Greyhound running dog is one of the most-recognized brands in the world”—from giving Naugatuck the same legal wedgie Chrysler gave Lake Mary?

The borough is far from alone here. Within the Naugatuck Valley League, at least four other schools could easily be accused of lifting logos from other franchises. Kennedy’s Eagle matches the Philadelphia Eagles’, Seymour’s paw print is a cockeyed version of Clemson’s, Torrington’s T looks like the University of Tennessee’s, and Wilby’s Wildcat is the growlin’ image of Kansas State’s.

Other Connecticut schools in the same position include Bridgeport Central and Rockville (St. Louis Rams); Daniel Hand, Bacon Academy, Ridgefield, Rocky Hill, Cheshire Academy, South Windsor, Foran and Pomperaug (Clemson); East Lyme (Minnesota Vikings); Enfield, Wilton, Old Lyme, Manchester and Windsor (Washington Redskins); Sheehan (Tennessee Titans); Norwich Free Academy and Masuk (Kansas State); Greenwich and South Kent (Arizona Cardinals); Jonathan Law (Philadelphia Eagles); Weston (Southern California); Southington (Rutgers); New Britain (University of Miami); Putnam (Purdue); Canterbury (Cincinnati Reds); Gunnery and Guilford (University of Georgia); St. Luke’s (St. Louis Cardinals); Maloney (Michigan State); and Fairfield Warde (Washington Nationals).

Some of these schools would likely contend their logos are, in fact, unique and that any similarities to other teams’ or companies’ are coincidental or unavoidable. As Kotkin, the Lake Mary principal put it, “You know, a ram is a ram. I don’t know how many different ways you can make a ram look like a ram and then it’s not a Billy goat or a moose or a whatever it is.”

But Kennedy AD David Rossi, for one, admits his school’s Eagle is a copycat.

“About four years ago, we sat down to pick a new logo,” he said. “We just searched Web sites for high school and college eagle logos and picked one we liked. We didn’t specifically go for the Philadelphia Eagles’. We also liked the [Boston College] Eagle. But we just picked one and sent it to the printer.”

I’d bet the Citizen’s News masthead plenty of other schools have used the Kennedy method of graphic design.

One school in no danger of receiving a cease and desist order—quite the reverse, actually—is Woodland, whose Hawk is one of a kind. In December 2000, nine months before the school opened, the Region 16 Board of Education selected a custom logo designed by GP&P of Prospect. Last year, the board trademarked various incarnations of the bird to make sure it doesn’t nest someplace else.

“We were afraid it was slipping away and that it would be used in a way not consistent with the district’s wishes,” Region 16 Superintendent of Schools Jim Agostine said. “My worst fear was that our very recognizable Hawk would appear on clothing with inappropriate sayings.”

Agostine added he once told “a local food distributer” to stop using the Woodland Hawk because the store did not have permission to do so.

Hey, if a high school can defend its intellectual property, shouldn’t Chrysler and other mega-entities be able to do the same?

Yes, if we’re talking about the court of law. No, if we’re talking about the court of common sense.

Look, it’s irresponsible for a school to make a Google image search the extent of its logo design process. A student who pulled a similar stunt would be flunked for plagiarism. Many school districts probably assume, as I did, that a custom job is prohibitively expensive. Region 16 paid all of $359 for its emblem. Agostine said the trademarking process was “laborious”—mostly because every use, from uniforms to coffee mugs, requires a separate application—but even the district’s eight total applications cost only $400.

However, it’s rather petty and mean-spirited for a large company, professional team or university to threaten a high school. As David Heller, an attorney and Naugatuck Board of Education member, explained, “Copyright laws are meant to protect a product from being infringed on by a competing company or business.” In other words, the law’s real purpose isn’t to prevent stealing itself—it’s to prevent devaluation that results from stealing. And I seriously doubt any high school’s use of a stolen logo devalues the original.

Let’s hope Greyhound Bus Lines, the Philadelphia Eagles and all these other big guys find something better to do than copy Chrysler and play high school bully.

CN Correspondent Kyle Brennan contributed to this report.

You might as well learn the name now: Rachael Flatt, Team USA’s top ladies’ singles figure skater, heading into Vancouver.

We’re pumped for the Winter Olympics. We really are. The problems is we don’t know much about ‘em—the events, the athletes, the whole shebang. To an extent, we feel this way every Olympiad, don’t we? The wonder of the Olympics is that for two weeks, we are enthralled by people we’ve never heard of playing sports we never watch.

But Winter Games are always more obscure than Summer Games, and these Games seem more obscure than any in recent memory. At least we still had Michelle Kwan in the run-up to Turin in 2006 (she withdrew before the competition began because of a groin injury).

Who do we have this year? Bode Miller? We’re sick of the Spiderman suit, sick of the stories about skiing drunk and sick of the lack of medals. Shaun White? He’s amazing, but most Americans think a Double McTwist 1260 is a McDonald’s menu item disclosing its calorie count (It’s actually one of White’s new tricks, which he debuted at the Winter X Games a couple weeks ago). Apolo Anton Ohno? Throw out his name in conversation, and I guarantee you’ll hear, “Isn’t he the guy who won Dancing with the Stars?” before you’ll hear, “Isn’t he the guy who needs only two more medals to pass Bonnie Blair as the most decorated American speed skater of all time?”

We’ve got a serious lack of star power here, though NBC will do its best to change that ASAP. Worse, we’re clueless about how most events—even familiar ones—actually work (You mean there’s no such thing as a perfect 10 any more?). So here’s a quick list of five things you should know about the Winter Olympics before Friday’s opening ceremony.

1. Rachael Flatt: Let’s face it, ladies’ singles figure skating is the glamour event of the Games, which means knowing the top U.S. entry is a must. “Reliable Rachael” is a media darling in waiting: A blond California girl, a straight-A student and the reigning national champion. She’s not considered a gold-medal contender but did win the 2008 world junior championship.
2. Ice dancing is different from pairs figure skating: People confuse these two like a set of twins. Many of us have sat on our sofas, watching Olympic ice dancing, waiting for a breathtaking release or peek-through-your-fingers headbanger that never comes. They never come because they’re not part of ice dancing. Ice dancing is more subtle than pairs figure skating, more about presence and artistry. If that sounds yawn-worthy, I can empathize, but keep this in mind: Of all the figure skating disciplines, ice dancing is America’s strongest at these Games. Two couples—Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto—have good chances to win medals.
3. Skeleton: I think this sport is so named because after the wind has peeled all the flesh off a slider’s bones as he careens 80 miles-an-hour headfirst down a windy, icy track, that’s all that’s left. OK, that’s a myth, and here’s another: Skeleton is a new, daredevil endeavor. In fact, skeleton was contested at the 1928 and 1948 Olympics. It only seems new because it took a 54-year hiatus before returning at Salt Lake City, in 2002. It’s worth watching because it’s more exciting than luge (chalk it up to the headfirst factor) and more transparent than bobsled. We all love “Cool Runnings,” but you can’t see what’s going on in a bobsled. You can, however, see how an exposed skeleton slider shifts his weight to manipulate the sled.
4. The five alpine skiing events: We’ve all heard the names—downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G and super combined—but most of us aren’t really sure what distinguishes one from the others. Basically, downhill and super-G (short for super giant slalom) are classified as speed disciplines, while slalom and giant slalom are technical disciplines. Super combined is, as the name implies, a combination of downhill and slalom. The main difference between speed and technical disciplines is carving—there’s more in the latter. Slalom has the most—and closest—gates (poles around which racers must weave); giant slalom has fewer gates, spaced farther apart; super-G has still fewer, more widely spaced gates; and downhill has the fewest, most widely-spaced gates, allowing racers to reach speeds of 90 miles per hour.

Team USA won’t dominate: Americans will likely own snowboarding, but it’s important to remember that, unlike at most Summer Olympics, “The Star Spangled Banner” won’t be on loop for a fortnight. In 20 Winter Games, Team USA has earned double-digit gold medals only once, as the host in ’02. And since this is a global event, it’s worth taking an interest in other countries.

A rather uncomfortable conflict of interest for the folks in Bristol, no?

Well, as a matter of fact, no. At least not according to the pliable ethical standards to which we hold sports journalism. On the contrary, ESPN’s relationship with Carroll seemed an advantage.

In one of the network’s first reports about Seattle’s firing of former head coach Jim Mora, ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter could be seen on camera—I kid you not—checking his cell phone for a text message. Now, I have no way of knowing whether that text was from Carroll (though Schefter’s accomplice, Chris Mortensen, quoted a Carroll text message in one of his early reports on ESPN.com), but my point is this: This smudging (erasing?) of the line between person-I-cover-as-a-reporter and person-with-whom-I-work-and-exchange-texts-like-seventh-grade-girls violates the basic principle of journalistic detachment.

Then again, detachment doesn’t attract viewers.

“What a lot of fans simply want is access,” says Andy Schotz, who chairs the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics committee. “They want those tidbits, those trade rumors.”

The fans Schotz describes would likely argue 1) Sports reporters aren’t affected by friendships with players and coaches and 2) Even if they are, what’s the big deal? We’re talking about sports, not a presidential election.

To the first claim, I say compare ESPN’s recent coverage of Carroll to that of his successor at USC, Lane Kiffin, who bolted from Tennessee. Both ditched enviable jobs in favor ones they believe to be better, both abandoned their teams and recruiting classes with little-to-no notice, and both left as questions about possible NCAA violations started swirling. Only one, however, has been portrayed as the ugliest two-faced jerk since Harvey Dent.

To the second, I say we’re not talking about sports alone. We’re talking about education (lest we forget the college in college football). We’re talking about multi-billion-dollar businesses. And we’re talking about fairness, which, given their penchant for decrying everything from Spygate to steroids, is a concept about which fans are extremely passionate.

So, sorry, the sports-aren’t-that-serious case is impossible to make.

In sports reporters’ defense, it is increasingly difficult to maintain true independence. How objective can a journalist working for YES (owned by the Yankees) or NESN (co-owned by the Red Sox and Bruins) be, when her boss is actually the team she covers? Broadcast journalists, in general, face unsavory predicaments because their networks must pay for the rights to air athletic events. When I was writing for the North American Sports Network’s online newsletter in London in 2007, my supervisor refused to run a baseball article I had written about Barry Bonds alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. The network was in the midst of negotiating a TV deal with Major League Baseball, she told me, and didn’t want to risk losing it because of a negative story.

On a personal level, it’s hard for sports reporters to overcome the undeniable allure of traveling all over the country or even the world, interviewing professional athletes. It’s every fan’s dream—except journalists should stuff their fan sides in the closet while on the job.

“You lose that in about the second day,” Boston Globe Red Sox beat writer Amelie Benjamin told the Associated Press Sports Editors, shortly after earning her self-described dream job, in September 2008. “I still consider myself a baseball fan in general, but not really a Red Sox fan. You can’t do that and do the proper job covering the team.”

So while inside information is a great hook and friendly relationships can be profitable, sports reporters should take great care to ensure they follow the same ethical principles practiced by their brethren in the news department.

“Sports shouldn’t feel immune to the rules of journalism,” Schotz says.

It seems some of you (mainly the 35-and-older contingent) have over-extended the bounds of what you believe to be boundless social networking Web sites. You’re under the impression that these are the tools kids these days use to communicate, that you’d better hop on the tech train or risk falling behind the times.

Listen, there is such a thing as trying too hard, and I’m sorry to report many are guilty of that offense. You’re misusing social networking sites, overusing them, or both. It’s not entirely your fault though. Likely, no one ever explained to you the unwritten rules of contemporary communication.

To help relieve you of this ignorance, I consulted two of my youngest correspondents: Kim Wilson and Kyle Brennan. She, he and I represent the high-school-student, college-student, and recent-graduate demographics, respectively. Our starting point was an

e-mail from CN’s assistant publisher to a handful of tech-savvy employees asking our thoughts about a Wall Street Journal article, entitled “Why E-mail No Longer Rules.” Ironic, huh?

The report didn’t exactly proclaim the death of e-mail but highlighted a growing perception that it is a sort of technological geezer, cumbersome and quickly becoming antiquated by status updates and tweets.

That perception is a misconception. What you have to understand is the communications that show up on Facebook or Twitter are not items that used to be shared via e-mail (or other, primitive forms of correspondence)—they’re things that didn’t used to be shared at all. Social networking tools are not horning in on e-mail’s market so much as they’re creating a new market altogether, a market for gems like “John Smith do not walk your dog in sweatpants with no undies on, it will not work out in your favor.” That’s an actual Facebook status—with the name changed, of course—I saw this week.

“In cases where e-mail has been left behind for the newer, trendier forms of communication, such as Facebook or Twitter, it is often inappropriate to do so,” Kim explains.

Basically, there’s a hierarchy of communication which, ranked from most to least personal/formal, looks something like this:
1. In-person
2. Phone
3. Letter
4. E-mail
5. Text
6. Facebook
     a. Message
     b. Wall post
     c. Status update
7. Twitter

Consider these real-life examples: If you’re going to break up with your girlfriend, you do it in person. If you want to wish your mom a happy birthday, you pick up the phone. If you have an opinion to share with your congressman, you write a letter. If you’re conducting business, you type an e-mail. If you’re going to be home late from work, you send a text. If you have gossip to share with one friend but not the others, you send a Facebook message, which is private. If you have a clever remark that you’d like the world to see, you post it on your friend’s wall, which is public. If you’re pumped for Monday Night Football, you update your status. And if you feel compelled to share useless information that no one really cares about, you tweet.

Breaking these unwritten rules is very uncool.

soccermom68: grandma died funeral’s tuesday @ 11, dave you wanna do the eulogy?

Like I said—very uncool.

OK, I haven’t seen a technological faux pas quite that bad, but the lesson is this: Let the info’s level of formality dictate the level of communication.

Last spring, our local politicians went through a Facebook phase, which I chronicled in a Jan. 23 article. Then-Mayor Mike Bronko used a Facebook group to solicit signatures for his primary petition. Kevin Knowles’ status reported his nomination by the Democratic Town Committee before any media outlet. These were creative, appropriate uses of the site. Isn’t campaigning about networking, after all?

But when several politicians—not just mayoral hopefuls—started using messages and wall posts, instead of e-mails, to communicate with me, my middle-aged-people-trying-too-hard detector went off. Facebook just didn’t seem a formal enough forum for reporter and candidate to discuss politics.

“I don’t think that social networking has any chance of replacing e-mail,” Kyle says. “My friends always like to tell me that I ‘get around’ Facebook, so I would consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the dos and don’ts of how to use it, and I never will see Facebook as a business tool.

“E-mail is more useful for business and more formal matters because it resembles paper mail—which has always been used for official business, finances and correspondence. Facebook speaks informality to me, which is no slight to it at all (and I think it helps make social networking more fun), so I don’t think formal matters such as interviews and business should be conducted via social networking, unless it is the only way.”

Here’s a secondary (but also important) lesson: Let the level of communication dictate the level of writing.

A few weeks ago, when it seemed every article in the newspaper focused on the Naugatuck Board of Education’s budget crisis, a borough administrator e-mailed me with the noble purpose of sharing several positive storylines: “We don’t want to loose site of all of the wonderful things that happen on a daily basis in our schools,” read the last line of the e-mail.

Now, I can live with relative disregard for spelling and grammar in communication modes five to seven (even newspaper editors kick aside capitalization when texting). But e-mail is pushing it—especially when you’re a school system administrator.

“As you move down the hierarchy, it seems as though generally-accepted rules and standards of grammar and etiquette lessen,” Kyle concurs. “For example, in business e-mail and letters, I use completely proper grammar; in texts and on Facebook, I normally will not use capital letters and sometimes a bit looser grammar. There’s nothing wrong with that, in my opinion; it just shows that those unwritten rules do exist.”

It’s possible that this administrator was not, in fact, trying to be casual. Perhaps the acceptably haphazard habits of Facebook simply slipped into the e-mail by accident. Kim admits something similar happened to her when she upgraded her cell phone service to include unlimited texting.

“After texting for a couple of weeks like crazy while enjoying my newfound technological freedom, I realized that I was making some pretty serious spelling errors in my papers for school,” she says. “They didn’t go uncorrected, but tonight became tonite and such. It was pretty horrifying.”

Almost as horrifying as making the local paper question whether you know the differences between lose and loose or sight and site.

Until now, four teams from each of six male enrollment-tiered divisions qualified for the state playoffs; under the new system, eight teams from four divisions will get in.

CIAC Football Committee Chairman Leroy Williams said expanding the postseason fields was the chief objective of the makeover, which was more than three years in the works. In many other sports, about 60 percent of all teams qualify for state tournaments. In football, that figure was only 17 percent; it will increase to 23 percent, after the changes.

In recent years, one common complaint about the football playoff format has been that it sometimes prevents deserving teams from earning postseason berths. Last season, for instance, four one-loss teams were left out of their respective tourneys: Bridgeport Central (9-1) and Ridgefield (9-1) in Class LL, Masuk (9-1) in Class L and Prince Tech (8-1) in Class S.

“I think that’s wrong,” Woodland Athletic Director Brian Fell said.

Masuk and Bridgeport Central were regulars in the state media poll’s top 10 throughout the season.

Woodland celebrated the second of back-to-back state titles in 2005. Now, it will be easier for the Hawks and others to make the playoffs, but fewer teams will be crowned champions.

The larger playoff fields mean adding a round to each division’s tournament and extending the season by one week. As in the past, the first round of playoff games (previously semifinals, now quarterfinals) will be the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and the second round (previously finals, now semifinals) will be the following Saturday. The championship games will be played a week later—Dec. 11, in 2010.

Naugatuck football coach Rob Plasky, who has one postseason appearance in nine years, said he believes the revamped system will give his Greyhounds a better chance to make the playoffs.

“It’s nice for us, feeling like we don’t have to go undefeated to get in,” he said. “Hopefully, it will help create more meaningful Thanksgiving games, where we have to win for states.”

While increased postseason participation seems an undeniable benefit of the new format, the CIAC Football Committee anticipates a series of criticisms:

One is that by lengthening the season into the second week of December, the CIAC has increased the chance that inclement weather will disrupt the playoff schedule.

Another is that the extended football season will decrease participation in winter sports. In the old system, members of football teams that reach state championship games would miss the first week of winter sports practice. Now, they will miss the first two weeks of practice and have only four days between their final football games and first winter sports contests.

“I don’t have a problem with adding a week to the football season,” Naugy boys’ basketball coach Kevin Wesche said, while overseeing a hoops practice Monday that included seven football players. “But I’d like football to start earlier—add that week to the beginning of the season, instead of the end.”

Fell points out that only eight of the state’s 141 football-playing schools will experience the two-week overlap, what he calls “a small price to pay” for opening the pigskin playoff fields to more student-athletes.

And Williams argues starting football season earlier is not a simple solution.

“Moving the games up a week doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. Everybody still wants to play on Thanksgiving,” which is traditionally the last day of the regular season, he explained. “So starting earlier doesn’t mean you end earlier.”

In its proposal to the CIAC Board of Control, the Football Committee estimated that among members of football teams that make the finals, winter sports participation will dip by a third.

Plasky, a three-sport athlete at NHS in the 1980s, agrees winter sports numbers will drop because of the longer football season.

“Honestly, I think you’re stepping on basketball’s toes,” he said.

Related critiques of the longer football season center not on the sport’s end date but rather on its number of games. Most years, teams play 10 regular-season games but in years when Labor Day falls on Sept. 1 or 2, they play 11. Some leagues, including the Naugatuck Valley League, hold their own championship games, before the state tournament. And now, the state tourney includes three rounds, instead of two. So an NVL team that advances to a state final could play as many as 15 games in a season—more than Division I college squads play.

“That’s too much football,” Plasky said. “And I love football.”

Fell thinks that’s debatable.

“Is it too much football for the [entire] league or just one team?” he said. “I’m more concerned about playing so many games close together at the end of the season.”

Beginning this year, a team that plays in both the NVL championship and state championship games would play five times in 23 days.

One effective—though likely unpopular—way to alleviate these drawbacks would be to diminish or eliminate Turkey Day rivalry games. Fell remarked that he likes New Jersey’s football format, in which the regular season ends the first week of November, after only eight games. State playoff quarterfinals follow the second week, and semifinals are played the third. Then the tournament takes a break so all schools can play rivalry games on Thanksgiving, and state championships are held one week later. Teams that don’t qualify for the playoffs play one consolation game the second week of November.

The New Jersey setup preserves traditional Thanksgiving contests but makes them worth nothing but bragging rights. The CIAC Football Committee noted in its proposal the importance of ensuring “all games played during the season count for [tournament] qualifying.”

Fell, whose Hawks have met Seymour on Thanksgiving Eve for only seven years, outlined another alternative: Play the first round of state playoffs—instead of rivalry games—on Thanksgiving and let the CIAC create other Thanksgiving matchups by pairing non-playoff teams of similar abilities. This plan would likely yield competitive games and help shorten the season, but Fell acknowledges any proposal that quashes rivalries would be difficult to pass in Connecticut.

In any case, the CIAC has committed to its newly-adopted football format for at least five years, believing that will give all parties enough time to evaluate its advantages and disadvantages.

“It could be good; it could be bad,” Plasky said. “We’ll see.”

She calls almost every day, my “old friend from Oak Terrace.” I can tell by the tenor of her voice, as soon as she greets me, what kind of day she’s having: Sometimes it’s a joyful chirp, quoting scripture and gushing about choir rehearsal; others it’s a smoker’s croak, bitter and depressed and “just about ready to give up.”

My friend’s name is Linda Jean Cray. She’s 45, heavyset—though she’s lost a considerable amount of weight recently—with stew-brown hair that flows just over her shoulders. Her smile reveals badly-worn, discolored teeth. A single, front tooth, apparently the survivor of the bunch, remains intact, recalling some cartoonish caricature of a baby.

Her arms are lined by scars and dotted by burns. Both are self-inflicted, the former by razor blades, the latter by cigarettes.

Linda has been clean for 21 months, her second-longest sobriety streak since she began abusing drugs and alcohol as a teenager. She says she’s tempted daily, that illegal substances are readily accessible at her Conrad Street apartment complex, and there are days when “I wish I’d never left Waterbury and the prostitution, the drugs, the alcohol; I wish I never left it.”

Compounding the arduousness of Linda’s recovery is a 30-year struggle with mental illness. She is manic-depressive, or as she explains, “I’m either really depressed or I’m screaming and yelling at you. Or I’m just crying my eyes out and don’t want to get out of bed.”

Linda’s chief comfort is her beloved cat, Leo, to whom she croons such inspirational songs as “I Can Only Imagine” and “I Will Carry You.” Leo is like her child—Linda puts his health before her own. A couple of weeks ago, she was scheduled for admission to the cardiac unit of Waterbury Hospital. Her doctor, she says, told her that her heart valves are clogged and beginning to leak blood; she might die before Christmas.

But she refuses to go because she’s afraid of what might happen to Leo if she does. She’s also scared she’ll lose what little personal property she owns, especially her late mother’s memorial and her estranged father’s vacuum cleaner.

Besides, she says, “I’d rather die with my cat, knowing that he loves me, than die in some hospital, knowing that you ain’t cared about.”

****

The details of Linda’s personal history—at least, the ones I’ve gathered over months of conversations—are largely saddening, extremely scattered, and often irreconcilable. In the third category is her relationship with her parents. Linda speaks affectionately about her mother; she says she can’t wait to be with her again in heaven and that the holiday season is always difficult because she misses her so much. And she displays admiration for her father, a former Connecticut state trooper, and brags that she inherited his “gut instinct when something is wrong.”

But she also recalls awful beatings and claims she was forced into prostitution at age 8.

Her schooling was patchwork, at best. She attended Hartford Public High School and Crosby High School in Waterbury, where she was born, but the onset of mental illness at 14 led eventually to an extended stay at Fairfield Hills State Hospital in Newtown. There she completed her diploma as an independent study student.

Linda says she has “all kinds of trainings,” including medical training, legal training and, most notably, police training. She’s never explained the first two but says she was a police explorer as a teen in Waterbury, until she was booted for getting high with a pair of officers.

As an adult, Linda has performed a veritable tour of Connecticut’s mental health facilities, halfway houses and shelters: Cedarcrest Regional Hospital, Greater Bridgeport Community Mental Health Center, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington and Gray Lodge Shelter for Women in Hartford, just to name a few.

“I’ve always been on the move,” she says.

Now, jobless and unable to pay her rent at Oak Terrace, Linda is on the move again. She says she’s received a notice of eviction; she was supposed to be out by Dec. 11, but the Naugatuck Housing Authority allowed her to remain in her apartment a while longer. As of printing, she planned to move in with a friend in Waterbury.

Housing is a particularly frustrating subject for Linda. She says she once lost all her belongings at an apartment on Bridge Street, though I’ve never gleaned specifics of how that might have happened. Recently, I compiled a list of two dozen or so affordable housing complexes in New Haven County, but I could barely complete an offer to share it when she exclaimed, “I can’t get an apartment because I don’t have any ID!”

On days when she feels no one is helping her, an exasperated Linda will ask, “Why can’t somebody just buy me a little house? I’d take good care of it, fix it up.”

****

Naugatuck resident Linda Cray, 45, practices a hymn in the sanctuary of St. Michael’s Church, where she is a member of the choir.

Linda’s lowest point, one to which she refers constantly, came on Christmas Eve 2006. I’ll let her describe what happened in her own words:

“When [my boyfriend at the time, Vin] got out of church, he took me over to his house [then] went over to someone else’s house for Christmas dinner, leaving me alone, knowing how I felt. And, again, I figured, ‘Make the best of it. I can do my laundry, clean his apartment.’

“When I saw them razor blades, oh no, they were too tempting, and I pocketed one. Didn’t tell him about it. And I took a very massive overdose. They didn’t know at the time why I was taking pills, in the letter I was leaving. But they said in a way, it’s a good thing I did because they were working, and I didn’t have time to cut my wrists before I passed out. They said no way should I still be alive. And the only reason I know that I am is that somebody helps me out a lot and doesn’t want me that way.”

Linda’s “somebody” is God, by the way.

After the overdose, Vin rushed Linda to a nearby hospital, where she claims she received no psychiatric treatment.

“It was the crisis unit that said, ‘There’s no doctor here tonight, so we’ll hold you for the night, and you’ll be seen in the morning and a decision made,’” Linda continues. “Eight o’clock in the morning, when crisis came in—I guess I was the first patient seen—and I can’t remember their names, but these two lady crisis workers come in and say, ‘Call your ride, you’re sprung.’

“Well back then, I had kind of a poo mouth, and I said, ‘What the f— do you mean I’m sprung? I told you I’m gonna kill myself.’

“[They said,] ‘Well, you’re sprung, so call your ride and tell him to hurry up or you’re going to jail for trespassing.’”

****

Linda didn’t kill herself, and though she admits to persistent suicidal thoughts, since she’s been off her anti-depressant, she insists she never will. After the suicide of a dear cousin, she vowed to never take her own life.

“[She killed herself] because I made a Thanksgiving meal for her when I was in a rooming house in Waterbury, and she did have 25 years of recovery, until I told her something that hurt her so bad she relapsed,” Linda says. “And like I said, they don’t know if she went into blackout when she took all the pills. So yes, I do carry that guilt around. That my lie hurt her that bad, when I was brought up to never lie.”

Linda has never revealed to me what she told her cousin or exactly why she blames herself for the suicide, but that event is an oft-cited turning point for her.

Another is joining the St. Michael’s Episcopal Church choir a couple years ago. Linda loves to sing, not only for Leo but also for a congregation and anyone else willing to listen. She says she was singing on the town green one day when a woman from St. Mike’s suggested the choir could use an alto.

Nowadays, Linda spends as much time as possible inside those brick walls. Most Sundays, she’s there by 7 a.m., an hour before the first service and three hours before she sings. And while some folks can’t help nodding off in the pews, Linda quaffs the sermons of Rev. Marston Price like an Israelite might have water, after 40 years in the desert.

“I think the church is the only thing really holding me together right now,” she says.

The day before Thanksgiving, Linda was in the sanctuary, rehearsing. Sporting a pair of headphones and a white robe that covered the CD player spinning instrumental accompaniment in her ears, Linda did her best to belt out the hymn, “Power in the Blood.” The noise was airy but joyful, her face impassioned, hands spread like wings at every crescendo and drawn to her chest as she cherished the “wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.”

Watching Linda sing, I understood that for her, this sanctuary is just that, and I wondered whether those headphones brought more comfort by the sounds they produced or those they blocked out.

****

The first call came some time in the spring, probably April, when long-rumored tension between young, disabled residents and senior citizens at Oak Terrace showed up in the police blotter: A 37-year-old Watertown man drove to the apartment complex and beat up a 40-year-old, mentally handicapped woman who he believed had assaulted his elderly mother.

Linda resented what she saw as a public perception that recovering addicts and mentally unstable newcomers were ruining the tranquil environment seniors once enjoyed at Oak Terrace. So she called the paper.

I field a fair number of complaints and, frankly, Linda’s didn’t really stand out. Her claims seemed vague and better handled by the housing authority than by a meddling newspaper editor.

Still, I listened. I got the impression not too many people did. Gradually, Linda began calling more frequently—every couple weeks, then every week, then almost every day. For the most part, I say very little. I just listen.

Linda loves to sing and says the church is "the only thing holding me together right now."

Linda has a very hard time trusting people. Most days she tells me how good the church has been to her; occasionally she declares it’s not doing enough to help her and that she feels unwelcome because of cruel rumors about her. She alternates between lauding the nobility of the police department and decrying its corruption. She rails consistently against the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, believing it orchestrated a “big scheme” to keep her locked up at Cedarcrest for 13 months. And when she’s really feeling down, Linda conjures her Native American heritage, characterizing herself as a modern-day victim of oppression by “the white man.”

She has absolutely no faith in doctors, least of all psychiatrists. She believes one “shot me full” of Abilify, a drug often prescribed to treat bipolar disorder or paired with an antidepressant, even though he knew it has a history of exacerbating her suicidal tendencies. Another, she claims, called every psychiatrist in the state and told them all not to see her.

“It just bothers me that they are allowed to get away with murder,” she says. “Doctors have a license to kill, I guess.”

The day she was supposed to go to the cardiac unit, Dec. 2, she called in a frenzy, feeling harassed by a call from the hospital. She’d just begun to calm down when the hospital called again. Linda held her cell (me) to one ear and her house phone (the hospital) to the other, so I could overhear the exchange. A female hospital worker asked calmly if Linda was refusing transport to the unit.

“I’m not going to see [that doctor]!” Linda shouted. “I don’t trust him!”

****

I’m not sure whether Linda trusts me or not. But I’ve told her she can always call me: “I won’t always pick up,” I say, “because sometimes I’m not at my desk or I’m working on a deadline, but you can always leave a message, and we’ll talk later.”

It’s an offer she’s embraced. In fact, sometimes she calls, knowing I’m not in the office, just to vent via voicemail. Thanksgiving weekend was a tough one for Linda. I’d told her I’d be out-of-state Thursday to Sunday, but when I arrived at my desk Monday morning, I had eight messages—seven from her.

In one, on Thanksgiving Day, she said she had called the same crisis unit to which she was admitted on Christmas Eve three years ago and that the woman who picked up the phone pretended she couldn’t hear Linda and hung up.

In another, on Saturday, she was audibly winded and said she was climbing the staircase by Salem School, with a taxing climb up Millville Avenue still to come, on her way home from the church.

“I highly doubt I’ll make it up the hill,” she said. “I’ll probably go down somewhere … just roll under a bush, and nobody will find me until I start stinking.”

Then in the wee hours of Monday morning, Linda left three messages—at 2:03, 2:30 and 3:37 a.m. In the first, she reported being kicked out of the church bell choir. In the second, she turned upbeat and proposed adding a puzzles page to Citizen’s News. And in the third, she described excitedly a radio advertisement she had just heard, in which the station said it was partnering with area charities to grant Christmas wishes. Linda’s wish was, of course, for that little house.

Later, she told me she made her holiday request, but the station never called back.

****

Linda’s heart, though alarmingly weak by medical standards, is irrepressibly strong by all others.

“During Earth Day, I started in March because I wanted to do it alone. It was April, [but] no, I started in March,” she says of the borough’s month-long community cleanup project. “And I cleaned from Rubber Avenue to just below the school, picking up trash six hours a day.”

She volunteers at the Ecumenical Food Bank and at various church events, including St. Michael’s annual fair and its free Thanksgiving dinner. She says serving at last year’s dinner made her feel like her mother was alive again.

One Tuesday in October, Linda cheerfully told me she had participated in a CROP hunger walk over the weekend and had marched seven miles, instead of the requisite five.

“When you’re working for God, he won’t let anything happen to you,” she said.

Despite all her frustrations, Linda maintains a remarkably witty sense of humor. One of her favorite jokes is about the biblical judgment day, when, she believes, all the people who have wronged her will stand in judgment before her and God.

“I think it’s going to be neat when Christ turns to me and says, ‘OK, now how do I deal with these people, learning what I taught you?’” she says, knowing God calls her to be merciful, even if she feels vengeful. “And I keep telling people, ‘I hope I don’t dissociate. Thank God he has the final say.’”

It’s not exactly a knee-slapper, but Linda’s crack is pretty revealing: It shatters any illusion we might have that people suffering from mental illnesses live in separate worlds, unaware of their own conditions and oblivious to our opinions. If Linda is capable of pulling off a dissociation joke at her own expense, she certainly knows when she’s the target of comments of a different nature.

“When you’re not receiving your meds and you can’t control how you act, you do get embarrassed,” she says. “I mean, when you feel the rejection that I feel every day, it’s hard. A lot of times I just stay in the apartment and lock myself in my room with my cat because it feels like he’s the only one who understands me.”

****

Friday is Linda’s birthday. It’s the first of a trio of December milestones she’s often doubted she’d see; Christmas and her 22-month anniversary, Dec. 28, are the other two.

Telling her story is my gift to her. It might feel like more of a burden to you, if you haven’t already tossed this column in the fireplace. But you know what? This is reality, or her reality, at least. You might have noticed I didn’t include comments from anyone but Linda; there’s no one in this article saying, “That’s not what happened” or “She’s exaggerating” or “She’s paranoid.”

Maybe they’d be right, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is this is how Linda sees the world, how God-knows-how-many-others see the world. And most of us don’t want to know that—we’d rather throw their stories in the fireplace.

After I watched Linda rehearse at St. Michael’s the day before Thanksgiving, I was stopped on my way out by a woman from the church. She was very concerned that Linda might have spoken ill about the church and wanted to make it clear that St. Mike’s is not involved with Linda’s eviction proceedings.

“But if you’d like to take a nice photo,” she said, “you can take one of the folks preparing for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner.”

As it happened, the kitchen was empty, so she steered the conversation toward the volunteer efforts church members put in to Naugatuck Teen Theatre.

I share this exchange not to disparage St. Michael’s or this woman in any way. Linda has made it clear over and over that when she’s in the church, “I just feel happy.” I think we all know how many good works it and other local churches perform; I believe the same about our hospitals and local and state services.

I share it as an accountability check to all of us: This time of year, we do all sorts of good deeds: We organize can drives and coat drives, sponsor children in third-world countries, slip an extra bill in the offering plate. We feel good about ourselves, and we should. Those are wonderful, generous acts.

But if we’re honest, we can admit they’re comfortable; they’re easy. And if we’re brutally honest, we can admit we possess little or no willingness to pay attention to someone like Linda.

My Christmas wish is that we start paying attention.

Take it to court—the basketball court, that is.

In case you’ve been flipping straight to the sports section lately, Naugatuck’s school system overspent its budget by about $1 million last year and is on pace to double that figure this year. In a way, recent Board of Ed. meetings have resembled sporting events: Boisterous, sign-waving attendees; TV cameras everywhere. We even had a rain delay of sorts last Monday, when the board spent more than two hours behind closed doors. Many folks stayed in their seats, and though no ponchos were necessary, the mood was pretty darn stormy.

In the last two months, Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Tindall-Gibson has heard more calls for his dismissal than Charlie Weis. Both the Naugatuck Teachers’ League and the Board of Mayor and Burgesses have voted no confidence in his leadership.

On the whole, the relationship between the borough and Board of Ed. is about as amicable as that between the Yankees and Red Sox.

That’s why we need an athletic intervention. Saturday will mark the one-year anniversary of the first—and so far only—borough employees vs. BOE employees basketball game. Remember that? It was a night of pick-and-rolling-with-laughter that raised money for the high school hoops teams and collected cans for the Ecumenical Food Bank. It was also a very close contest. Bailiff Josh Ruccio scored 18 points, including the game-winning layup with 7.2 seconds to play, for the borough in a 64-63 victory.

I propose we do it again.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Tindall-Gibson said, when I made the pitch. “We should do that. I think everyone’s been so distracted and wrapped up with the budget that we haven’t thought about it. I’d love to do something like that.

“I could ask Jimmy Goggin what he’s thinking about,” he added with a chuckle, referencing the borough tax collector who is among those advocating the superintendent’s resignation.

“I’d tell him I’m thinking he should learn how to do his job,” quipped Goggin.

Alright! A battle of the big men—this is a phenomenal start. I say we call up Nike and reshoot those Kobe vs. LeBron puppet commercials with Goggin and Tindall-Gibson.

“Will there be an ambulance standing by?” asked Board of Ed. member Rocky Vitale, considering the prospect of those verbal haymakers turning physical.

Sure, Rocky. Or better yet, we’ll pick a sport that’s a little rougher anyway.

“Maybe it should be a wrestling match instead,” suggested BOE Chairwoman Kathleen Donovan.

Brilliant! Heck, we could do a borough vs. BOE decathlon. Between gate money and our cut of the new Nike ad, we’d close that budget gap easily.

“What’s Bob [Mezzo] really bad at?” Tindall-Gibson wondered about the Naugatuck mayor, who’s also urging the school chief to step down. “We’ll play that.”

Not so fast, JTG (By the way, can we make him a replica of LeBron’s LBJ sweater and change the letters to JTG?). You’re assuming Mezzo will play for the borough team. But remember, Mezzo also sits on the Board of Education, so he could represent either side.

“I don’t know,” Mezzo said, mulling the decision. “The Board of Ed. came up on the losing end last year. I used to not be afraid to shoot the ball. Maybe I would have to suit up for the Board of Ed.”

Wow, this is like the time Wade Boggs said he wanted to wear a Tampa Bay Devil Rays hat, instead of a Sox cap, into the Hall of Fame. Didn’t see that one coming.

The truth is the education team might need Mezzo just to fill a complete roster.

“With the way the relationship is right now between the board and the teachers, I don’t know if we’d get enough support from the teachers [to field a team],” said Dave Heller, the Board of Ed. secretary who organized the original matchup.

Since when has not having enough numbers stopped the Board of Education from doing something?

Heller said before budget problems strained their rapport, the borough and BOE actually did give some thought to a multi-sport series and a traveling trophy. The two held a swim meet early this year, and other sports discussed include soccer, volleyball and flag football.

Vitale added one condition to that last one: “Only if we do it barefoot on gravel with spiked collars,” he said.

I’m not sure where to find spiked collars, but we could play on the high school soccer field—that might be more extreme than gravel.

“In all seriousness though, maybe [playing the basketball game again] would be a good release for everyone,” Donovan said.

“I don’t think it’d be that bad,” Goggin agreed. “I think we’d play basketball.”

Come on now, guys. Don’t lose your edge.

“There’s been a loss of trust, but I’ve never questioned anyone’s integrity,” Mezzo chimed in. “Maybe an evening of recreation is just what we need.”

So you wouldn’t vote no confidence in the superintendent’s jump shot, Mayor?

“No, nothing like that,” he said.

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

I had the same conversation over and over again last week with an elderly woman named Rose, a rather odd experience for someone who talks to people for a living (if you think about it, that’s really what a journalist does).

Rose is probably in her 80s, petite, with a silver Dutch clip. And boy is she a flirt. Each time I answered yes to the first question, she’d nudge my leg and say, “Oh that’s too bad. If I were 21, I’d go with ya,” laughing with gusto at her own joke. She doesn’t wear glasses, so (in part because of my own vanity) I take it her eyes are still sharp.

Sadly, Rose’s memory is not—or, at least, her short-term memory is not. On the few occasions when I managed to direct her off-script, I learned that Rose is of Italian descent, worked in the shoe division of Uniroyal for more than 40 years, and was widowed a couple years ago.

I doubt she remembers anything about me.

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

I was seated to Rose’s right at a table, along with two other women, neither as old as Rose but seniors themselves. The one to Rose’s left seemed to recognize quickly the situation. I felt I could read her expression: “That poor young man, trapped in this never-ending conversation.” I think she was embarrassed.

Truthfully, I didn’t feel trapped, though there was no escaping the loop of questions. I was confused the second time they came, thinking maybe she hadn’t heard me the first time. Soon, though, I realized hearing wasn’t the problem.

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

I have two living grandparents, both on my mother’s side. Grandpa is 88 and his remains the most popular lap in the toddler room of the church in which I was raised. Grandma is 83 and still cooks Sunday dinner every week for as many as 23 people. They’re out-of-it when it comes to technology or popular culture, but in conversation—and most everything else—they’re about as with-it as they come.

I share this to illustrate how foreign my exchange with Rose seemed. Each time she posed a familiar question, I did my best to answer with the same energy I had the first time—“No, we don’t have any children yet, but we’d love to have a family some day”—and she, in turn, would smile and offer a “God bless you,” with no recollection of my previous responses.

I’d like to think I was kind and patient, but I wondered if I would manage to be so consistently, if 15 minutes with a stranger were years with my own grandmother.

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

I can only guess that Rose has Alzheimer’s disease. When I described our cyclical chat later to my wife, an occupational therapy master’s candidate who has worked with senior citizens, she concluded Alzheimer’s or dementia.

The diagnosis doesn’t matter much, nor does Rose’s full name or the location and circumstances of our encounter. I’ve omitted these details deliberately because I don’t want you to fixate on one person—I want you to be able to imagine Rose as anyone in your life. She could be your mother, grandmother, aunt or maybe not a relative at all. Perhaps she’s your neighbor, or just someone you meet by chance.

Would you feel trapped?

“Are you married? How many children do you have? Where do you live?”

The ever-sagacious Will Smith, during the opening narrative of the 2005 movie, Hitch, tells us, “60 percent of all human communication is nonverbal, body language; 30 percent is your tone. So that means 90 percent of what you’re saying ain’t even coming out of your mouth.”

That breakdown is spot on for Rose. She seemed to forget my words almost as soon as I spoke them, but it didn’t matter to her. My smile, the fact that I didn’t pull away when she touched me and my willingness to enter a world of constant déjà vu were all she needed to be happy.

And when I focused on the 90 percent of what she can still express as coherently as ever, the other 10 percent was easy to forget.

What’s a responsible voter to think, just days before casting a ballot? Mallon and Chatfield can’t both be telling the truth, can they?

Well, in a way they can. They’re just measuring debt in very different ways.

Mallon’s figure, which he cited in an interview with Citizen’s News earlier this month, is a combination of Prospect’s bond debt and the town’s share of Regional School District No. 16’s bond debt, as of the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2008. That total is $25,647,441.

If that number seems outdated, keep in mind that it is the most up-to-date figure on record with the state and at Town Hall. Municipal audited financial statements for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009 are due to the Office of Policy Management Dec. 31.

Charlie Mallon, Democratic challenger for the mayor's seat, says it's unfair to disclude educational debt from an overall estimate of bond debt.

Chatfield’s number, presented to Citizen’s News last week in a letter from Republican Town Committee Chairman Tom Galvin, does not include educational bond debt and reflects the town’s debt, as of the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009. It is $3,075,169

Though Prospect’s 2009 audit report is not yet public, it is possible to estimate the bond debt that will be listed, by subtracting the town’s 2009 bond service payment ($675,701) from its 2008 debt ($3,750,870).

As you can see, the main reason Mallon’s and Chatfield’s figures are so different, is because the first-term Town Council member includes Region 16 debt (of which Prospect is responsible for 61.198 percent, based on current enrollment) and the 32-year mayor does not.

“When you try to disassociate from Region 16, that’s not right,” Mallon says. “That’s not a true picture.”

Chatfield argues that including school debt comes with a qualifier.

“What’s not being said is that most of what we owe, we get back from the state,” he says.

Indeed, the state of Connecticut reimburses Region 16 for 60.63 percent of its bond debt, so the district’s—and, by extension, taxpayers’—burden is considerably less than the bonds’ actual principal and interest.

So what’s the real number?

“We’ve asked Bob for years for an accurate figure of what our debt is, and we’ve never been given true numbers,” Mallon claims. “That’s part of why I’m running. When your own Town Council member has trouble [figuring out Prospect’s bond debt], that’s not right.”

Bob Chatfield, incumbent Mayor of Prospect, says the state reimburses the majority of debt incurred through education.

“It’s all in the annual report,” Chatfield counters. “If [Mallon] wants to run the town, he should know those numbers. … If people want to know, they can ask me, same as you. … It’s a non-issue. Taxpayers approved all our bonds at town meetings”

Again, they’re both right, in their own ways. All of the figures listed in this column are public information, and Joe Voter is just as entitled to request them as I am. However, it took half a work day of scouring government Web sites and making phone calls to the Office of the Secretary of the State, Department of Revenue Services, Office of Policy Management and Prospect Town Hall—enduring automated voice messages and call transfers—for me to collect all the data I needed. And I’m a professional journalist.

What I’m not is a professional accountant, but it became clear that if I wanted to answer the question “How much bond debt does Prospect really carry?” I’d have to calculate the debt myself. None of the figures I’d been given seemed entirely fair.

As Mallon points out, the majority of local tax dollars are spent on education, so it seems appropriate to include Prospect’s share of Region 16 debt. Also, OPM factors in school system bond debt when it publishes the annual compendium Municipal Fiscal Indicators.

But as Chatfield notes, the majority of that school district bond debt is covered by the state, a caveat not taken into account by MFI.

So here’s a summary of my math (explained further in the table above), using debt estimates as of the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009:

• Region 16’s total bond debt: $31,500,992
• Region 16’s total bond debt, after state reimbursement: $12,401,941
• Prospect’s share of Region 16 bond debt, after state reimbursement: $7,589,740
• Prospect’s share of Region 16 bond debt, after state reimbursement, plus town bond debt: $10,664,909

That last number, folks, is what I believe to be the fairest measure of the debt for which you are responsible. It’s not an official figure, but it’s one that actually seems to satisfy both candidates.

“OK,” Chatfield said, when I explained how I arrived at roughly $10.6 million.

“I agree with that,” Mallon added. “I’ll go along with that.”

Entering the contest, the Garnet and Grey were down six two-way starters: tight end/linebacker Mike Kennedy (torn ACL), lineman Ken Jones (sprained MCL), lineman Dan Bergeron (concussion), running back/defensive back Dashawn Wingate (thigh contusion), running back/defensive back Marty DeJesus (thigh contusion) and running back/defensive back Andrew Cirino (broken collarbone).

By the time the powerful Green Knights were done pushing Naugy around Veterans Stadium, wide receiver/defensive back Marquan Williams, who often takes handoffs as a slot receiver in motion, was sidelined by an ankle sprain, and three more Hounds were concussed: wide receiver/defensive back Matt D’Agnone and linemen Anthony McKernan and Dan Mariano. Among those 10, only Bergeron is expected to return this week.

Toss in another half dozen backups and special teamers, and this is one sore football team.

Signal-caller Erich Broadrick is one of few backfield starters still healthy for the Hounds.

“Last year, we’d do contact drills on Monday, maybe Tuesday,” Plasky said. “Now, we thud all week. We don’t go to the ground.”

Thudding refers to players simply bumping into one another during practice, as opposed to tackling. Naugatuck simply can’t afford to lose any more guys.

The short-but-definitely-not-sweet account of Friday’s game is this: Notre Dame running back Justin Willis tallied three first-quarter touchdowns—a trio of runs that alone totaled 102 rushing yards—and the Knights overwhelmed the Greyhounds, 42-8. The hosts would have been flirting with the CIAC’s 50-point margin-of-victory limit if they hadn’t shut down their offense during the final two quarters.

“What I saw is that we can execute, at times,” Plasky said. “But we don’t finish very well.”

Perhaps the most debilitating blow is to the team’s running game. The backfield that just a couple weeks ago looked deeper than the Mariana Trench was forced Friday to turn to a sophomore making just his fifth career start at fullback and a freshman team callup. The former, burly Jake Yourison, delivered by carrying 16 times for 98 yards. The latter, Nick Kosa, scored a 1-yard touchdown with 28 seconds remaining in the game.

“He’s a standout,” Naugy freshman coach Shawn Kuczenski said of Kosa.

And he may not be the only ninth grader who sees varsity action in the coming weeks. Kuczenski’s squad is 5-0 this fall, led by a marauding defense that has given up only six points and five first downs so far. There’s talent down there, but no one thought it might have to be used at the varsity level midway through the season.

The Hounds’ third straight loss virtually knocks them out of Class L playoff contention, but one consolation is the defeat—however lopsided—does not affect their Naugatuck Valley League Copper Division standing. The Garnet and Grey remain 1-1 in the Copper, with four straight division games looming against Sacred Heart and Kennedy at home and Woodland and Holy Cross on the road.

Last year, in a rare showing of offensive firepower, Naugy exploded for five second-half touchdowns against the Hearts in a 40-23 victory. Quarterback Erich Broadrick had what remains the best passing performance of his career: 12-for-16, 155 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Now in an unexpectedly lonely backfield, the junior may need a few more games like that one to keep his wounded team in the Copper conversation.