The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

Bench at baseball field honors Wellesley’s Harry Clark

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Wellesley’s got new premium seating at Reidy Field for baseball fans.

The bench was installed by the town in December at the Washington Street baseball field through an anonymous donation to honor Harry Clark, an inspiring young Wellesley resident who passed away last summer. Word is that the donors were friends of Clark from youth baseball, where they were brought together.

Clark’s father, Kevin, says the bench’s appearance was a very pleasant surprise for the family. “We are so grateful and hope it keeps the wonderful spirit and actions of Harry alive,” he said.

Harry Clark bench at Reidy

Harry Clark bench at Reidy

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Linden Square, Wellesley
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Ex-Celtic Gordon Hayward’s Wellesley home goes on market for $6.6 million

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With former Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward leaving town for the National Basketball Association’s Charlotte Hornets, Hayward and his wife Robyn have put their Wellesley mansion on the market for $6.6 million.

If they fetch that price for the 159 Dover Road home, it would add up to $2.4 million more than they paid for it just three years ago when Hayward left the Utah Jazz to join the Celtics. Maybe the house is wallpapered with Celtics season tickets or something? Though actually, the listing includes an abutting lot purchased by the owners and that has added value to it.

Still seems wild that they could make that much on the house in just a few years. Then again, who thought the 30-year-old Hayward would sign a four-year, $120M contract with the Hornets after an injury-plagued stint with the Celts?

The 2016 Colonial boasts seven bedrooms and seven-plus bathrooms, and sits on 6-plus acres of property that affords great privacy. You’d be looking at a mere $68K in property taxes for this home in the Hunnewell Elementary School district.

Based on the real estate photos, the home has a sterile look featuring lots of hardwood floors and white walls. Criminally, no basketball hoop.

Though why settle for such a quaint $6.6M property when you can spend just an extra $3 million for a 10,000-plus square foot behemoth on Pond Road?

So many Boston Celtics players and execs live in Wellesley that we refer to the team as the Swelltics. Team President Danny Ainge, Coach Brad Stevens, and player Jaylen Brown are among those in town, and newcomer Tristan Thompson has been rumored to be next.

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Page Waterman, Wellesley
London Harness, Wellesley

With Wellesley cross country season over, it’s your turn to try out the new course

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By Rick Cleary

The impact of COVID-19 on the fall 2020 athletic season for Wellesley High School meant the postponement of some sports, such as football, and some major changes to the format of others, including soccer. Cross country running had fewer changes to deal with. There’s relatively little contact between athletes, there is no equipment to share, and all events are held outdoors where transmission risk appears to be very low.  But fewer changes doesn’t mean “no changes” and the Wellesley High School team faced a big change that needed to be resolved in a short time. They needed a new place to run!

For many years Wellesley had hosted home meets at the Elm Bank Reservation along the Charles River, but the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the property’s manager, did not extend an invitation to return in 2020. Coaches Colin Corkery (boys’ team) and Cassie Short (girls’ team) brainstormed with runners and booster club parents about possible locations. Wellesley residents, ask yourself:  Where would you go to have about 80 high school kids run a race of 2.5 to 3.1 miles, with room to start waves of 10 runners at a time, socially distanced six feet apart, on a course and so they don’t pass each other going in opposite directions?  You want varied terrain and not all pavement, and you want to avoid traffic and stay away from trails that are crowded with people and dogs.  You also need someplace where you can mark the course in an environmentally sensitive way, but clearly enough that runners know where to go. 

Various ideas were floated. The area around the Middle School and Sprague fields? Too crowded with soccer players and not enough room to make the course long enough. Centennial Park? Not enough room for a start/finish area and too many dogs and walkers. Trails on or near the Babson and Wellesley College campuses were off limits.  The Brook Path?  Too many road crossings. But one area held some promise.

Remember all the buzz about what to do with the North 40 land that the town of Wellesley acquired from Wellesley College a few years ago? Criss-crossed with trails of varying widths, adjacent to the Morses Pond access road and a parking lot that could serve as a start/finish area, it seemed a good candidate.  The question remained whether there was room to fit a long enough course. In mid-September, booster parent Rick Cleary and Jeff Dosdall, the captain of the 1970 WHS cross country team, met to scout the area. Using some aerial photos and their GPS watches, the two were able to map out a 2.8 mile course that met all COVID restrictions. Now with a candidate course, various approvals were needed. WHS Athletic Director John Brown contacted the requisite agencies and councils and was pleased that they were enthusiastic about the area being used.  The team had a home.

And it worked well. During Wednesdays in October and early November, there were four racing days, two for the boys and two for the girls. (Usually the same school hosts both groups, but reducing the number of students and spectators at each site was another COVID adaptation.)  Wellesley protected home turf, winning all of its races there. 

Parents and other adult spectators at high school sports events might look on and think, “Wow, that looks like fun!  I wish I could play!”  While most teams won’t let them in the game, the cross country course is on public trails so anyone can walk it or run it.  Give it a try (at your own risk).  The course map is below and brief instructions follow that.  And if you’d like to compare your time to the WHS athletes, here are the fall 2020 results. 

XC course at north 40

Varsity 2.8-mile course

  • Start in the middle of the Morses Pond parking lot. Take off toward the beach and follow the paved trail/roadway around the small pond, keeping the pond on runner’s left. A to B to C on map.
  • Proceed up Morses Pond Access Road; turn right onto Crosstown Trail (point D on map)
  • Watch for trail to left off Crosstown Trail. Take it. One mile mark just after the left turn.
  • Now the tricky part (preview this before trying to set a record):  Watch for a small purple arrow indicating marked turn to the right. (Point F.) Then ignore next small arrow that points left, then watch for left turn to point G at community gardens. (During home races we would rake this area to make it clear; and nobody got lost!)
  • Proceed almost all the way around community gardens to a sharp u-turn at point H; then after long straightaway continue straight (point I) onto a trail that will lead you to a boardwalk.
  • Follow boardwalk (there is a left turn in the middle) out to Turner Road (point J). Turn left onto Turner Road sidewalk.
  • Take Turner Road and Morses Pond access road straight back to point C, go around the small pond, this time keeping it on your right, and finish in the middle of the parking lot again.

For the junior varsity course, about 2.4 miles, skip the second lap around the small pond and run straight to the finish.

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Stretch Lab, Wellesley

Patty’s Room: Wellesley High seeks fitting honor for athletic trainer retiring after 40 years

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Update Dec. 22: The School Committee approved the naming of the WHS Athletic Training Room after Patty Hickey at its Dec. 22 meeting. Here’s a mockup of the plaque shared by Athletic Director John Brown.

Patty's room

 

Wellesley High School Athletic Director John Brown isn’t the mushiest guy I’ve ever met. But he waxes downright sentimental when speaking about Patty Hickey, the ubiquitous head athletic trainer who has been serving the town’s student-athletes for 40 years and retires this week.

“She truly thinks of every athlete as her own child,” he says. “When she talks about my football players, she means they’re her football players… she just cares about these kids, whether it be swimming or wrestling or you name a sport.”

Patty Hickey, Lucy Raeke
Patty Hickey in 2017 wth student trainer Lucy Raeke (photo courtesy of Eric Cohen)

 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school system can’t throw a party for Hickey as it would otherwise have done.

But Brown and WHS Principal Dr. Jamie Chisum recently approached WPS Superintendent Dr. David Lussier with an even more special idea. They proposed naming the athletic training room in Hickey’s honor, and Lussier and Brown in turn made this request to the Wellesley School Committee this week (hear their comments starting at about the 1-hour and 56-minute mark of the Wellesley Media recording).  The committee welcomed the idea, and now needs to proceed with the logistical ins and outs of getting it done, hopefully by the time it has its last meeting of the year later this month.

Brown said during the School Committee meeting that Hickey has dealt with hundreds of thousands of student-athletes across the state over her career, which has also included mentoring a roster of excellent student trainers.

He praised her thoroughness, whether it was treating athletes directly, calling parents if their kid twisted an ankle at a game, or emailing the administration if an athlete got concussed or needed to get in an ambulance for treatment.

John Griffith, a WHS fitness and health teacher, as well as football and track coach, echoed much of what Brown said when we exchanged email with him about the trainer.

“Patty Hickey will be a tremendous loss to our teaching and coaching community,” he says. “She was such a strong figure that brought knowledge, confidence and a kind heart to everyone she was around.”

He adds: “I remember countless times that she was brought to tears worrying about the health and well being of countless athletes over the years.  As a head coach, I always knew my athletes were in good hands with Patty.”

Naming the training room in Hickey’s name, and putting up a plaque to formalize it, is an obvious way to recognize her, Brown says.

“Whenever anyone describes the door that comes into the building that’s outside the athletic training office, they call it coming in by ‘Patty’s room,'” he says. “If we’re going to say ‘come in by Patty’s room,’ why don’t we just name it ‘Patty’s Room?'”

Patty Hickey (Photo courtesy of Eric Cohen)
Patty Hickey, with her game face on (photo courtesy of Eric Cohen)
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Wellesley High basketball gets go-ahead for winter season

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The Wellesley High School basketball teams will be adding a new drill to their regimens: moving 198 desks and 198 chairs in and out of the gym so that they can practice and play during the pandemic.

“There’s a huge buy-in for our kids,” Wellesley High Athletic Director John Brown told the School Committee on Tuesday night. “They know if they want to play then they need to do this.”

The outlook for basketball being allowed didn’t look good late last month when a handful of other sports, including ice hockey and gymnastics, got the School Committee and Board of Health’s OK, but basketball did not. It was listed as “pending further information” in light of COVID-19 concerns.

think beyond pink basketball

Since then, the various approval parties have been convinced by medical experts and play modifications outlined by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association that basketball is worth a go. This applies to freshman, JV, and varsity boys and girls teams, with practices set to start Dec. 14 and games vs. 6 teams in their league beginning on Jan. 5. There will be no state tournament games.

Brown, who along with other school officials got the Board of Health’s blessing on Monday, reviewed the basketball game plan with the School Committee on Tuesday, Dec. 8 (around 1 hour and 15 minutes on the Wellesley Media recording). Among the rules and new practices: No in-person spectators, the introduction of mask break areas, and limited roster size. Some play modifications seek to limit close contact between players, and Brown noted that close defense has largely gone away anyway as more players are launching 3-pointers and defenders switch more on the players they cover. The school will work with coaches to strongly encourage all players to get tested for COVID-19 even though WPS can’t mandate the students to do so.

School Committee members raised concerns about safety, about the teams Wellesley would be playing, and fairness issues in allowing sports to take place while other student activities are not allowed to take place in person. But in the end, the committee voted unanimously to approve play.

There’s still no plan for clearing school gyms for Wellesley youth basketball.

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Wellesley sports update: Hockey & skiing in, hoops out for now; student-athletes sign with colleges

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Wellesley High School has announced that the following sports have been approved to play during the winter season, set to begin in mid-winter (practices start Dec. 14, meets/games on Jan. 4).

Those approved:

  • Ice hockey
  • Boys swimming & diving
  • Alpine & nordic skiing
  • Gymnastics

Not on the list for now:

  • Basketball

Basketball, listed as “pending further information” on the School Committee presentation, is challenging in that it relies on indoor facilities at the school that are being used for other purposes during the pandemic. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association has approved the sport for the winter season, though it remains to be seen what other local schools do.

As for sports slated to be played, there will be no out-of-league competition or MIAA tournaments.

Dance, track & field, and wrestling have been moved by the MIAA to later seasons.

Congrats to local student-athletes who have signed national letters of intent to play sports in college:

  • Dana Hall School’s Kate Bossert ’21, a Needham resident, signed a letter of intent to play soccer at the University of
    Vermont. She led the varsity team in scoring during her first three years with the Dana Hall team (she wasn’t able to play any games during her senior year due to the pandemic).

KateBossert_DanaHall

  • Margaux Gryska, a Wellesley High senior, signed to attend Syracuse University and compete on the women’s rowing team (Wellesley High doesn’t offer crew).

Margaux Gryska

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Wellesley won’t be seeing NBA player Gordon Hayward at Roche Bros. anymore

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With reports that professional basketball player Gordon Hayward has signed a four-year $120M deal with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, Wellesley loses one of its Boston Swell-tics. We won’t be seeing the 6-foot, 7-inch tall Hayward, his wife Robyn, or any of their young kids cruising the Roche Bros., aisles anymore (my only live sightings) after Hayward rejected a $34M deal to stick with the Celts for another year.

gordon hayward roche bros

The Haywards moved into a $3M-plus Wellesley home in 2017 when Gordon joined the Celtics, whose Coach Brad Stevens and GM/President Danny Ainge also live in town.

We all should have known something was up though when Hayward, whose time with the Celtics has been marred by injuries, snagged another $3M mansion in Fishers, Ind., near where he grew up and where $3M gets you a lot more house than around here. Word on the street recently was that Hayward was angling to join the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, but it looks like he’s winding up none too close to there in Charlotte (though granted, closer than Wellesley).

Robyn Hayward posted a farewell note on her Instagram account in which cast some obligatory blame on the media, then shouted out neighbors,  Roche Bros., Wasik’s, and the police (for checking on her every day?).

robyn insta

We wish the Haywards well, except when the Hornets play the Celtics, and now someone with a few bucks can soon have the claim to fame of living in a former NBA player”s house…

swellesley green ad

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