Faces of New Canaan

Faces of New Canaan: Ronnie Roganti

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We’ve wanted to track down Ronnie Roganti for a while for an installment of “Faces of New Canaan.” A high school senior, Ronnie has been a fixture on the sidelines at every football game for the last two years—home and away, postseason included. He’s a gifted photographer with a knack for getting to the right spot for the big play (see photo at right, for example). What we didn’t know until we sat down to talk to Ronnie (interview transcribed in full below) was how big a part New Canaan Rams varsity football coach Lou Marinelli played in Ronnie’s foray into sports photography. We’ll let Ronnie tell that story in his own words, and just mention one more way that the New Canaan football program—and Ronnie is not a player—has helped shape his experience here in town. A native of Westchester whose family moved here when he was in the fourth grade, which he spent at West, Ronnie also volunteers with special needs kids through a program an assistant coach on the football team at the time put him onto.

News

‘There’s No Better Ending’: New Canaan Football Overcomes Darien to Win Class L-Large State Title

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On Thanksgiving Day, the Darien Blue Wave stunned the New Canaan Rams, turning a two-score halftime deficit into a 28-21 win to steal the FCIAC Championship. Two and a half weeks later it was the Rams who turned the tables on Darien. Trailing Darien 20-7 at halftime on Saturday morning, New Canaan scored 14 unanswered points in the second half en route to a 21-20 win to capture the Class L-Large state championship at West Haven High School’s Ken Strong Stadium. The win marked the second consecutive state title for the Rams, and the 10th for head coach Lou Marinelli, who handed the previously unbeaten Blue Wave (12-1) their first loss of the season. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” Marinelli told NewCanaanite.com on a windswept field packed with jubilant New Canaanites, moments after the big win.

Sports

‘This is the Moment You Live For’: 20 Questions With Zach Allen

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New Canaan Rams senior co-captain Zach Allen is about to close the book on one of the greatest football careers in program history. The school’s all-time leader in sacks, Allen was recently named as the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year, the first New Canaanite to be so honored since former Rams great and current defensive coordinator Chris Silverstri back in 1993. Allen—a High Honors student at NCHS—also has a chance this weekend to add a second state title ring to his collection as the Rams prepare to take on Darien in the Class L championship. NewCanaanite.com spoke to Zach about everything from the NC-Darien rivalry to his favorite pre-game sandwich in our latest installment of 20 Questions. First of all, congratulations on being named CT’s Gatorade Player of the Year.

Around Town

Turkey Bowl Essentials: A Breakdown of the New Canaan-Darien FCIAC Championship

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If Thursday’s FCIAC Championship between New Canaan and Darien is indeed the final conference title game, you couldn’t dream up a more fitting coda to what was once the centerpiece of the Connecticut football world. From the inaugural game in 1966, to the classic New Canaan-Stamford games of the late ’60s-mid ‘70s, right on up through the dominance of Greenwich in the ’80s there was no bigger game in the state—save Harvard-Yale—than the FCIAC Championship when it was played on Thanksgiving at Boyle Stadium. The game would lose some of its luster when the league decreed Thanksgiving to be a day of “rivalry” games in 1994. But for most of us who grew up in the area, the real Turkey Bowl was the FCIAC Championship of old. Now a scheduling mandate from the CIAC might do away with the contest altogether.