It was a huge game, and the John Bapst boys soccer team needed all the support it could get against perennial champion Ellsworth.

Standing on one side of the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center field, enjoying the sunny, crisp Sept. 7 afternoon and the tightly contested game, was a gathering of parents and fans.

The other side of the field – behind the team benches, trainer, timekeeper, scorekeepers, coaches and media – was a mass of purple-and-white uniformed members of the John Bapst football team who watched as their soccer counterparts rallied to tie the Eagles.

Eventually the football team went back to practice, and the Crusaders wound up with a 4-3 win that would prove important for the standings later in the season.

The soccer players were focused on the game, but they took notice of the football team on the sidelines. The football players, busy with their own practice most of the afternoon, didn’t know what was going on in the game but cheered anyway.

“It’s great. I’ve been trying to get those guys over here for so long,” John Bapst senior goalie Chris Smith said after the game.

“They usually only come to the girls games,” he said with a smile, “but they came over to watch us today. It’s good for us to support [each other].”

It was a scene that would have made Landis Green smile, and one the John Bapst head of school hopes will be repeated in the near future – only this time, on the school’s own fields.

For the past year or so, Green has spearheaded a drive to find a donor for a plot of land somewhere in or just outside of Bangor where the school can build a complex of athletic fields that John Bapst’s athletes can call their own.

The private school plays on at least six different fields scattered throughout Bangor. The facilities are adequate – some better than average, others needing work – but it’s not an optimal situation for a school with about 75 percent of its student body playing some kind of sport and a solid group involved in two or three.

Over the course of the season John Bapst football coach Dan O’Connell frequently gave his players a break from practice to allow them to cheer on the soccer team. Green envisions a scenario in which soccer players in practice stop to watch field hockey games, and vice versa. Maybe the cross country team would jog past a football practice.

And eventually, the future might include field hockey and soccer games being played on neighboring fields, followed by a football game later that evening. In the spring, perhaps, the track and field team would practice while baseball and softball games and tennis matches were being played. Parents and students could roam from game to game watching the action.

“There’s a magic that happens when other kids are around and when parents can go from one competition to another, witness a practice,” Green said recently. “It builds the school community in really positive ways.”

With a generic vision in place, all John Bapst needs is a way to make it happen. Alumni and donors, that means you.

“We’re hopeful,” Green said, “and trying to get the good word out there about what a great opportunity it is for someone who wants to support our kids, specifically our athletes in this way.”

Playing around town

To be a John Bapst student-athlete, parent, coach or fan, or to at least watch a game involving the Crusaders, is to know your way to several fields in town.

The girls and boys soccer teams play at the Dorothea Dix fields, although they also occasionally play at an Eastern Maine Community College field or at the Union Street Complex.

The football team practices at a field next to the soccer pitch and plays games at the Bangor School Department-owned Cameron Stadium. Field hockey plays on a field behind the Penobscot Job Corps. Baseball and softball are at Husson College.

It’s an arrangement that works for now, but it’s not ideal.

“I do think it takes some getting used to for our families, for our new young athletes, to figure out, OK, if it’s soccer it’s at BMHI, if it’s field hockey it’s at the Job Corps center,” Green said. “They’ve got to figure out where their kids are going to be playing.”

So just what does Green envision?

A 20- to 30-acre plot of developable land, about a 10- to 15-minute drive from the school to accommodate Bapst students who live in towns like Glenburn or Veazie, for starters. From there, as far as Green is concerned, the rest – whether it’s soccer and field hockey fields, football, baseball and softball stadiums – is open for discussion depending on the priorities of the donor and needs of the students.

“The first step is finding someone who provide us with the raw land and the second step would be to seek people who would help us to develop it,” he said. “I think it’s all very possible.”

Green knows it would take years, possibly a decade, for a complex to come together. Even if a donor offered 30 acres of land tomorrow, he said, the school would take a slow approach.

“I would want to create sort of a master plan for the land and then move in stages to identify, which fields are most important, and then we develop the fields from there,” he said.

Although the school is seeking a donor for the land or money to purchase land, Bapst likely wouldn’t save money in the long run. In fact, the school pays very little now for the fields it uses.

Except for the use of Cameron Stadium for football games, for which the Bangor School Department charges $1,700 per game, John Bapst does not pay to rent fields, Green said. The school does contribute money for field upkeep such as mowing or seeding, and has paid to develop some fields.

Scheduling John Bapst games, however, isn’t a priority when it comes to sites at Husson College, for example, which has its own teams to consider first. Occasionally, the Bapst baseball and softball teams are bumped from the Husson facilities, which are among the best in the area for both sports, because of the college’s athletic events.

Bapst hasn’t had trouble finding another field at the last minute, Green said, but those instances make a fields complex even more attractive.

“In most cases we are relying on the kindness of other organizations,” Green said. “Everybody’s helping us in every way I think because they’re conscious that this is about getting spaces for kids to play.”

Following a model

Of course, John Bapst isn’t the only school playing on fields scattered through a town. That’s what happens in an urban environment – what little green space there is, is gobbled up.

Bapst’s location near the busy intersection of Broadway and State Street means there’s no green space to be had in the immediate area. It’s the only school in the Greater Bangor area without some sort of field complex adjacent to the school.

Some schools, however, are in Bapst’s position. Green would like to model his vision on those examples.

Take George Stevens Academy, which is located close to downtown Blue Hill. The school owns a 200-acre parcel of land near the town’s fairgrounds that is the location of the soccer and baseball fields. The softball team plays nearby, in the infield of the fairground’s track.

The baseball field has been in place since 2001; the soccer field dates back to the mid-to-late 1990s. The school used town fields before that.

Neither GSA athletic director Jim Murphy nor staffers at the Blue Hill town office know how the school acquired the land more than 30 years ago. It’s likely the land was donated, Blue Hill selectman Jim Schatz said.

It was an ideal parcel to develop, Murphy said, because it was relatively flat and the tree growth was young, which made it easy to clear.

Over the years donors, volunteers and the George Stevens trustees have raised money or given time and materials for improvements to the complex. The school also has a grounds-keeper.

Green’s concept of a decade-long project is a reality at GSA. The school is still developing the complex about 10 years since moving its fields to the site. The next priority for the location is a softball field.

“We’re still in the developing stages but it’s something that needs to be done as soon as possible,” Murphy said. “We want to make sure we do it right. We want to make sure the girls have the same amenities as the boys.”

Donors welcome

A fields complex has been the topic of conversation at John Bapst for several years, Green said, but the issue never got further than talk and wishful thinking.

More than a year ago, however, the school took action, posting a notice in the alumni magazine. It generated some interest but nothing the school could build on.

“A couple of people approached us and said, you know, I’ve got some land to sell or I know so and so who’s got some land, talk with them,” Green said. “So we’ve had a couple of preliminary conversations with people but nothing has come to fruition thus far.”

Green isn’t anywhere near ready to give up on his vision, however. He’ll talk to any interested alumnus or donor who has land, money or ideas.

The issue must have hit home Oct. 31, when the Ellsworth and John Bapst boys soccer teams met up for the third time this season (Ellsworth won the second game). This time, the teams were playing for the Eastern Maine Class B championship.

They weren’t at the Dorothea Dix complex even though it was John Bapst’s home game. Bapst’s field was so waterlogged from heavy rains the previous days that the teams had to play at Hermon High School’s field.

There’s no avoiding rain and wet grass, but the Crusaders likely longed to play – and enjoy the award ceremony after a 2-1 win over Ellsworth – on its own athletic field.

“It would be great,” Bapst goalie Smith said after the first game. “We play at so many different places that not all of our fans can come out. [A Bapst complex] would be a lot better.”

For more information or to speak to someone at John Bapst, call development director Melody Weeks at 947-0313.