Zach Gill and Salisbury will be in the CEM this fall. (Brian Kelly/NEHJ)
Tucker Mears remembers those fall weekends well.
He would typically wake up in his dorm at Frederick Gunn on Saturday morning and head to a soccer game since the school required students to play a sport every season. If he were lucky, his father would make the eight-and-a-half-hour drive from Cleveland to be there and drive Mears to a place like New England Sports Center in Marlboro, Mass., or Foxboro Sports Center in Foxboro, Mass., for his Yale Jr. Bulldogs games on Saturday and Sunday. That came after soccer.
If his father wasn’t there, it was on him to find a ride.
He rented a hotel Saturday night, before playing one or two more games on Sunday. Then, it was the two-hour drive back to Frederick Gunn to make dinner time. Sunday night study hall followed.
Things were even crazier for a showcase weekend. Games typically started on Friday, which meant Mears needed teachers to sign off on absences, and went through Sunday and sometimes into Monday.
“I had a lot of times I got back late on Sunday and not been able to get to study hall,” Mears said. “I’d have to email my teachers, ‘Can I get an extension?’ It was very time-consuming.”
Mears won’t have that problem this fall.