[Chris Murphy]: I just can't help myself. I know he's going to kill me real quick, but I can't not talk. These kids did a wonderful job. These seniors are leaving this program better than they found it. But I can't talk enough about what John Curley has done for the Medford football program these last six years. Six years ago, Paul DeLaver, Bobby Maloney and Rachel took a chance on a first year head coach. There was a small minute part of the city that made a lot of noise. who aren't making any noise now. He took this program from the worst team in the league to now the best team in the league. He changed the culture. He has done an amazing, he is an asset that really needs to start being tapped more in the city. What he's done for this program, the kids, we've sent kids off to college every year to play football. They're all graduating. They're just doing an amazing job. And he's doing things, he's pulling things out of these kids We haven't seen in the city in 10, 15, 20, 50, 50 plus years. So I had to come up here and speak about how awesome of a job he has done in this program and how proud that this city should be of him. It should also be known, he's not gonna tell anybody, but I'm gonna, he was originally chosen to be coach of the year for the GBL, but he didn't agree with the, you know, the Revere coach had hit his hundredth win. So he felt that that honor wasn't, deserving him, but we all know that there isn't a better coach we could ask for. And I especially am proud to have him in the city, and we all should. So thank you very much for this time.
[Chris Murphy]: My name is Chris Murphy, he, him, and then I am the president of the Medford Football Association, which is the booster club that supports the Medford High football team.
[Chris Murphy]: I'm gonna give you two. I'm gonna give you like a fast and I'm gonna give you like a sit down. So fast, I would say Ronnie's. I've been going to Ronnie's since I was nine. I love his pizza. Kids love his pizza. He's never failed me since fifth grade when I started going there. Sit down. I'm gonna go Razo's Chicken Pie.
[Chris Murphy]: I met you at Ronnie's. You see each other every Thursday. Yeah. You were going to soccer and I was going to football.
[Chris Murphy]: So we, the Medford-Malden rivalry, this year is gonna be our 137th game. Not the 137th year, 137th game. There have been some, they did skip a year and there were two games played in two years. So the game started in 1889. That was actually the first year Medford High had football. And you know, being so close, Malden, from what I've read, Malden challenged Medford to a football game on October 25, 1889. They played that first football game. As is on our trophy, Medford won 34 to nothing. Malden complained and set because Malvin believed that Medford was using kids from Tufts on the team. So they played again on November 30th, which is a Saturday after Thanksgiving. And Medford still won, but we only won four to nothing in that game. So I don't know if Malvin was right. You know, maybe they just had a bountiful Thanksgiving. So they were, you know, they weren't playing well, but you know, I wasn't there, but, and then back, and then 1890, they didn't play. And then back in 1891, they played another two games, Medford won both games. So we started off good with 4-0. And then every year since 1891, both teams have played. It became a Thanksgiving rivalry for the first time in 1897. And then in 1899, it became an official Thanksgiving rivalry. So with the exception of a couple of years due to weather, and then due to when we played in Fenway Park, the game has been played on Thanksgiving every year since 1899. And to give people an idea, like 1899, you're talking two centuries ago, you're talking Medford's only been a city for less than 10 years. Medford High School was still just one building on Forest Street and hadn't expanded the way it has. Yeah. Where did they play football then, do you know? They played, from what I've been able to catch, it was called the Medford Polo Grounds at Brooks Playstead. So it was Playstead Park. And then some other stuff I found said there used to be a field on the corner of Salem Street and Otis Street, there was a field. And then if you know where Gillis Park is now on Fulton Street, before 93 was there, that was actually called the Fulton Street Grounds, and then later became Gillis Field. Gillis Field was named after a John Gillis, who was a big Medford baseball and football player, actually played for the Red Sox. So we played at Gillis Field, I think from like the early 19-teens all the way up till the 1960, 61, if I'm not mistaken. And then we've been at Hormel since 1965. And then they did play the game at Tufts a few times from what else I was able to find. And then Tufts, they did play at Tufts a few times when we had like a really bad weather. Tufts was able to, I guess, get the snow off their field a lot better.
[Chris Murphy]: Yeah. So in the 135th game every year, Fenway hosts either anywhere from like four to six games every year. A few years ago, we were, you know, offered like a once in a lifetime, I guess you would say, type of deal to play at Fenway. It was and we were the home team. So it's kind of cool that we got to use the Red Sox locker room. We got to dress in there and hang out in there and it was cool. We did when we did the entrance onto the field. We went through the way the the that the Red Sox go do like do the warm up and I still have that video on my phone. I haven't deleted that video or moved it over. I keep carrying it on my phone. It's still kind of cool. I still watch it from time to time. I'm going through videos to delete. I'm like, eh, OK. But that was it. It didn't have the outcome we wanted, but the experience was really cool. The only thing I had that was I would say negative about that was it wasn't on Thanksgiving. It's like when the game was over, I'm like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do Thursday? No, I've been doing this. The same thing for 30 years. It's like now I gotta help. I guess I guess I gotta go over and help my dad cook or something like that. So that was my only qualm about the Fenway game, but it was definitely a really a really cool experience. And I'm glad the kids got to enjoy it. But yeah, that was just another really cool thing that we were able to add to the history of this game.
[Chris Murphy]: Season's been going really well. We're five and four right now. We have our last game before Thanksgiving tonight against Waltham, who actually used to be a team we played Waltham was in the greater Boston league, which is our league for about 20 years. And then they switched over. I think it's the old colony league. Um, we, we started off a little slow on three and then we went on a nice five game win streak, which was great because we haven't had a five game win streak since 1981. So, um, it's bad. You know, we, we, we did get, we have had, uh, You know, we did have a tough several years for decades. But we have an amazing coach now, John Curley. Those who don't know John, he runs the rink. He's been the coach for the last six years. He's really had brought a great kind of swag about the team now. They're more confident than I've ever seen. They're well prepared. put in that offseason work better than I've seen in a long time. And it's really paid off with this five game win streak. You know, we've had more GBL All-Stars this year than we've ever had at seven. Justin Marino is our quarterback, is the league MVP. He's on pace to get the league's school scoring record, which is only 178 points. He's about 18 points away from the record, which is good. We have some other great seniors who are looking at, you know, who are looking to go play at the next level in college. So it's just been an all-around great year. Did have some other records broken this year. We broke our single game scoring record by Justin, six in a game, which actually was a record that was set in 1973 at a Thanksgiving Day game by a guy named Mike Colonna. He had five touchdowns and 266 yards. So we broke a nice 51 year record that stood and Justin's grandfather actually played on that gate in that team with he was a captain acting team. So it was kind of cool that like Justin's grandpa got to text his old teammates. And we also have, you know, something I've always been pretty proud of in my tenure is we had the first female varsity football player a couple years ago, a girl by the name of Tess Morrow. And this year we had our first female score points in a game. Brianna Cerullo, she's got a two point conversion against Chelsea on senior night. So that was another nice accolade. So it's been a great year. They said start off a little slow, they caught their feeding, but then they've gone, they've just had a nice run and You know, hopefully these last two weeks we can feed off that run and still, and then strong, which is, would be great.
[Chris Murphy]: I think we'll win. Um, I, I don't want to give, I don't like to give the score because I did that once and it wasn't great. So I don't want to jinx it.
[Chris Murphy]: It's interesting, because to go back to the game a little bit, I wrote actually some things down. So the only time we've ever gone into this game undefeated, both teams, was 1951. There have been 31 total times during the 136 games our league title was determined by this game, and 18 times the Eastern Massachusetts Championship has been, was settled on this game. So it's kind of like, when you read like some of like the old box scores and like, I've read like a lot of Globe articles from back in the day to like kind of get ready for this. There are a lot of times like a team will come in like boys to win the league and go undefeated and they'll lose. Like that's a really cool thing about the game is like, it's almost like, your record goes out the window, everything you've done before that goes out the window, and it's kind of like a new season, new, you know, it takes on, there have been times where we have probably, we should have gone in and won this game, and we didn't. And there are times that they've gone in, should have won this game, and they didn't. So that's the other really cool thing. And, you know, like last year, we started off a little slow, we went into, halftime six and often they came back tied at six or six and then we just went on a tear and I think we forced like five into five turnovers in the second half and end up winning the game 3036 to 12. So it's going the way I have the confidence that they play the way that they've played and continue to do what they're supposed to do that they'll yeah, we'll keep the trophy. So we haven't we haven't won back to back games in a while. So it'd be good to get that'll be another great thing that we can just add to like, I said, I said to them, it'd be be your goal is to check boxes this year, things we haven't done in five years, 10 years, 15 years. And they've checked a lot of boxes. So it'd be nice to, to check a couple more.
[Chris Murphy]: So I, I grew up in a, We were, you know, my dad was a union guy, my mom, you know, worked part time. My dad went to Medford High, my uncles. So when I was like, I think I was nine years old, the first time my dad would say, All right, we're gonna go watch Medford Malden. And it was kind of cool. You know, we would go went to the Irish American on Malden, they had like this dollar breakfast, which I think it's like still like a $2 breakfast, which you still is like you go there and there's still like 1000 people and they're all going to the game and we go we'd have breakfast and then we'd go over to the game and there would just be all these people and yeah, I you know, being a little kid and I see what my son now like, you know, when I when I get older, I want to I want to be the people that are watching. So when I became a freshman, first thing, I'm going off of football. I played four years, I graduated in 2004. I would say football is, everybody has a job. Everybody has a different job. When your margin of error is low, you're forced to work together, you can't, one person can't just determine the outcome. Football gets you, and team sports in general, gets you ready for life in ways that you can't teach. I think, and you know, I'm not knocking people that don't play sports, but I think people that play sports definitely have an advantage going into work, like, because, again, you have a job to do, your margin of error is low, you're forced to work as a team. It's got me, and then the relationships you make, like, I've made friends in football that I still have today. I had guys in my wedding party that I met playing football. If I look at my group chats, like my three big group chats, I guess you'll say two of them involve kids that I played football with. So I think the aspect of learning how to be, you know, how to take criticism, how to work as a team, how to work toward making yourself better are amazing things that I would totally suggest to people. In team sports in general, I think that there are a lot of any type of team sport is going to help you too. I, I, I don't have a kid in the program, which is kind of like, like most of the time, like the booster club president has been a father. I was helping out. And then it came time. We had a, a big group of parents that were leaving because their kids had already graduated like two, three years ago. And they're like, you know, we stayed on it's time to move on. And then it's like, all right, well, nominations for president and like, we kind of hooked around like everybody's got their hand out. And I'm like, I'll do it for a year or two. Um, there I am 10 years later. Every year my wife is kind of like, but it's, you know what, it gives me a chance to keep busy. I got my kids involved with it now, like my kids love going to games. It's funny, like I have a picture of me and my daughter at every Method High opener since she was a month and a half old. So that's like our annual, it's like, the only tough thing is she's like, well, you helped me in the first ones, you have to help me now. And I'm like, seven and like, you know, not as as light as used to be. But it's, it's just, it's, it's definitely like a great thing to like, take my mind off, you know, the hectic things in life. And, and then I get to meet so many great kids, boys and girls now, who, you know, give you a lot of faith that but you know, humanity is going to be fine because we have these amazing kids that come out and I see and it's and I'm at the point now where like I'm seeing kids from 10 years ago now who are getting married having kids and it's making me feel old but um well like again um it's nice to like pass on like what I've learned and have like a great experience with their lives and making for like I'll bring up like John Curley, like I was when he came on, we had just lost, you know, our coach had just resigned. And I was like, and you know, maybe it's, this is my chance to kind of get away. I get a text message two days after he's hired, like, Hey, you know, I'm john Curley, can we meet, you know, meet it. And, um, you know, for lunch at john brewers, I just want to talk to you. And I'm like, all right, I'll, I'll give him, you know, I'll take the meeting. I sat down, we talked. Uh, at first I was like, yeah, we're going to hire this guy from Somerville. And then I left that meeting and I texted a bunch of friends and I said, I think we found the guy. I go, I just had lunch with this guy for two hours. And the thing he said to me, he goes, I'm looking for a guy who can help me and be a partner. And that's what he's kind of, you know, he doesn't, he hasn't looked at me as like, just like the head of the, like the, the parent's club. He's actually allowed me to come in and be with the kids, help him out coaching, be around. And, you know, he's now to the point where my wife doesn't even like, she's like, all right, let's football stop. But it is great to like, you know, we have some great kids to see them go off to college. Last year, we had three kids go off to college. I think we're gonna have a couple more this year. to see them from like when you get them as freshmen to see how they built themselves up. And I always say to parents, our goals are to make your children good athletes at the bottom, good students, and good citizens. Those have been the three things that we always say. These are our goals. If we can, if we can leave here and your kids are those, those three things, they're going to be great.
[Chris Murphy]: Like you also, you also get to meet people from like different walks of life. Like I played with, kids from all different walks of lives. Like I played with a kid who immigrated from Russia, I played with a kid who immigrated from Haiti, kids who have immigrated from like Puerto, who have, you know, came from like Puerto Rico and other Latin, you learn their traditions, you learn, learn cool things about them, you learn, you know, I always say like, we don't, we don't have any males, we don't have any females, we don't have any white kids, we don't have any kids, we have mustaches. We all believe blue and white. We're all Mustangs. We're all while each other's equal and they treat each other great. I love that.
[Chris Murphy]: So the game is at Malden this year is at 10 o'clock in the morning. I believe tickets believe I'll find out for you. If you can buy tickets, I think you can buy tickets in advance at the athletic department, you're Mr. Maloney in this Perry. And it's gonna be great. You know, get there early because parking, parking is always that's the thing that stinks about like these places is like parking is never our field and Maldon fields aren't at the like our high schools. So like parking isn't always the best. So I would say get there early to get parking. I want to tell you another funny, quick story about that I wrote down that I found really cool. So in it's about another day with with a claim about your two games. So I found reading about a story in 1917, in France during World War One, the 101st Division, which had a lot of guys from Massachusetts. So apparently, Medford had this former captain named Ed Larkin, who was a sergeant in the army, who organized, they found enough guys from Medford and Malden in this army division to play a football game off a battlefield in France. While the war was going on, while they had like a ceasefire during Thanksgiving, they played this extra game. And that was something that I really didn't know about, that I found out doing some research that I think was really cool that I wanted to, throw in there for people to find out about. They claim that there was no score due to the, they didn't want to, they didn't want to publish the score due to morale, but I would like to hope to think that Mythic won.
[Chris Murphy]: Like I met like a bunch of people from like, like I used to play semi pro football. And I played for this team in Charlestown called the Townies. And then we went to I went to a game in Vegas mostly because it was an excuse to go to Vegas when I was 22 years old, but I'm talking to guys from the Midwest, from the West, the South, and they're like, let's play Thanksgiving football. What's with the Thanksgiving football thing? Because it's really not like if you go outside of like, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, it's really not a thing like like Maine. they're done with football next week, football's over, like their stage. So it's like a very, like you said, you're right, it's like a very Massachusetts thing like this. And it's sad, because there are teams that have actually like, moved away from the whole Thanksgiving football thing, like, and they play on like, Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday night now. And I'm like saying, like, I hope that never happens to us. Because that whole like, waking up, you know, so, so we always have route, we had a pep rally on Wednesday, you go into your last practice, then you go, you have a dinner, we call it a tradition dinner. Um, but we have the team, the cheerleaders, there's some like, you know, the principal comes and invite guests and you know, you shake your last pump up and then you wake up early because you really haven't slept and then you go out, you're freezing cold most of the time. I feel like every time it's in Medford, it's pretty nice, but every time we're in Malden, it's torture, which is weird because we have that river right there that usually flows like this whole, and then it's just a whole nostalgia. And I can't imagine like playing it any other day. It's weird to say, like, it's an experience like no other. And I say to the kids, like, especially like our seniors, every time you do something, it's the last time you do it. And then like you, it's really like, I remember, you know, we didn't win my senior year, but I remember every, and it's still kind of like haunts us, like, because we'll sit around and do the, you know, back in my day, we'll sit like, we'll always talk about, like, I might hate my 20th reunion the day after the game. And sure, we'll get there, we'll talk about, we'll laugh about some things. And then somebody will say, yeah, but if we had beaten Malden, it would have been them all. And that's how it is a lot of people like you, you, you remember, you may not remember what your score against some of them was, you may not remember what your score against Everett was, you may not remember, you remember what your scores against Malden were. And I was lucky, like the first two we won, last two not so well. And I said to the, I always say to the kids, like, you don't want to feel like I felt for like, for after that game, you want to, You know, you want the turkey to taste good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And also, I saw that you guys are selling some raffle tickets for the yes, yes, we are doing a we do every year we do a raffle where we raffle off some cash prizes, as well as our right now, who's great to us, donated a authentic Patriots throwback helmet. That's one of the gifts. So they're $10 a ticket. If you go to our Facebook metric Mustangs football, it's on there, just reach out to us, let us know and we'll we'll tell you how we can get your ticket. It's a it's a great it's a great raffle for the team. I think that's another thing that like people are like things are expensive. We have a lot of great businesses in the city that have, you know, support us through like, you know, advertising banners sponsoring dinners as well as a lot of a lot of people. So but it does take like a lot because like, where did you look at like the golf team might have like a dozen to 15 kids a soccer team might be like 20 kids. We got over 50 miles to feed. We do a team dinner for them every week where they're able to sit down the night before the game and, and just relax, talk to each other learn stuff. We take their phones away. So we like they walk in, they put their phone down. on a table and then they sit down, they talk to each other, they laugh. It's really great. So, you know, then like everything, you know, costs money and everything's expensive. So anything that we raise, you know, really helps out and getting the kids shirts and jackets and awards. And so we really, I want to thank everybody that's, you know, that's helped us out and bought tickets already and been great to us.
[Chris Murphy]: No. Again, I thank you for letting me come on here and talk about the team and I hope that we'll see everybody there at Malvern. It's going to be a great, it's going to be a great game. We're going for our second winning season. We haven't had back to back winning seasons in over 30 years. So that's going to be, that'll be a great thing. Hopefully we can get it tonight. So we don't have to worry about Thanksgiving. Yeah. And just like I said, it's a great team with a lot of great kids and an amazing coach. Come on out to a game and go Mustangs.
[Chris Murphy]: All right. Well, thanks, Chris. Thanks, Daniel.
[Chris Murphy]: So voter integrity means nothing.
[Chris Murphy]: Yeah. Chris Murphy, 15 Cobb Street. Before I go talk about the piece, I know you guys enjoy my occasional visits, but for the last time, for a couple of you, Cole, Rick, Adam, wherever the hell he is, just thank you guys for all you do, all you have done, and all you will continue to do. You know, it's not easy as this night could tell. And then, but Rick, I just wanted to say thank you for always being a friend of the Mexican football and always at every budget season taking the ball of pushing for Hormel Stadium, which I hope one of you will pick up that ball and run with that. But the reason I am here, Next week, Method High School football will play for the 136th time against the Malden Golden Tornadoes. We will be at is a home game for us this year. After a couple of years, we finally back on the odd year home, even year away. But we do have a couple great events coming up this week that I also wanted to come and push this Thursday at four o'clock at McDonald Stadium, which is named after a Medford High School alumni. I always love to throw that in there, that there is a plaque for Tobit McDonald, who was the captain of the 1935 Medford High School football team, but they don't like to acknowledge, it's not acknowledged on the plaque. But at four o'clock, they're going to be doing a unified, our second annual unified flag game. Last year was an awesome event. We got the varsity team involved on both sides, and it was just an awesome event. The news is there. If you can make it down there at four o'clock, it's a great event. These kids have a blast. And then immediately following that, our JV team, a couple new kind of tradition we've kind of had as our JV team to play each other the week before. And then next Thursday in the pep rally on Wednesday, I think at 11 o'clock, but 10 o'clock next Thursday. And I am proud to stand here before you as the booster president of a winning football program. This year has been the first, I've kind of dubbed it with Coach Curley, the first, I call it the first in a long time type of year. First time in 16 years, 14 years with five wins. Longest streak we've had in a long time where we haven't gone under 500 all this season. We've only let up an average of 16 points a game this year, which is the best we've had in a long time. And all that with, you know, 42 great young men and women who would, you know, play hard, play tough, and an amazing coaching staff. And we're finally, something that George and I have pushed for the last couple years, we're finally seeing the John Curley effect where, you know, attitude of these kids has changed and it's showing. And believe it or not, we have a very young team too. We don't have, we are going to return a lot of starters. So I think you're going to see for years to come a very successful program. Um, and I can't, like I said, I can't, you know, all those that have been, you know, have helped this team out of the air, you know, just thank you and thank you for giving me this couple of minutes.
[Chris Murphy]: Buddy once told me that you can only see it if you're in the room with an actual Mustang. So if you cut yourself and you see red, the other guy in the room is not a real Mustang.
[Chris Murphy]: And, you know, and- These are things that, I mean, You and I have lost a lot of mentors in the last couple of years. I can't, I could, you know, between Joe Grandy, Bud Kelly, Armin Caraviello, I could go on and on. And, you know, you've kind of always said, you know, who's going to be there to I'm trying. But like I said, we can disagree on politics. We can disagree on all these things in life. But when it comes to things like this, this is something we can all agree on, that we can all come together and smile and be happy. And for a couple hours, go out and watch this team play and just be all proud that we're all from Medford.
[Chris Murphy]: One of the big reasons I still do it, my kids love it. My four-year-old is, I'll pick him up from preschool. We're going to feed the football team today. I'm like, like we just don't feed them every day.
[Chris Murphy]: Real quick, seven Boston Globe Player of the Week weeks this year. Seven.
[Chris Murphy]: I'll tell you what, this guy over here, Councilor Scarpelli, was big in the early 2000s for getting us to go to each other's games. I went to soccer games in cities I didn't know existed to go watch Georgia's teams play.
[Chris Murphy]: I'm glad that I've seen probably more smiles on all your faces tonight.
[Chris Murphy]: It's funny. You know, it's I tell the kids, it's It's great to win games, but there's nothing like beating Malden. Nothing.
[Chris Murphy]: With the exception of the time I might've sang that with Bishop Irwin at my confirmation. This is probably the best rendition I've ever had of the song.
[Chris Murphy]: I would like to tear the whole complex down and build it up and do something nice. But yeah, there should definitely be something for your uncle there.
[Chris Murphy]: We'll work on that. All right.
[Chris Murphy]: All right. I know you all have families. I'm gonna go home and get yelled at.
[Chris Murphy]: Chris Murphy, President, Medford senior football associates, if you want to have. I am up here just to give a sent the thing to the school committee so I just wanted to come talk to you guys just to have more eyes on some of the stuff we're going to be doing this summer. We have two big events coming up. The last time I saw you guys was in November. So it's good to see you all again. We have had been a pretty busy year wise, you know, it seems like football has become like a 12 month thing. You know, we've done a lot of community events this past winter, we did community cleanup day, we did grave decoration, and we just helped the Medford and Chelsea Kiwanis last week pack 10,000 meals. which was as soon as the kids kind of turned into a little competition and went crazy with packing meals. But we've had a great off season. Just wanted to come up here and talk about two events we're having in the summer. July 14th, Friday at 5 p.m. We're dubbing it the event of the summer. We're going to be doing the first annual blue and white game. It's going to be a flag football game where the team is going to team up with separate team with joint teams of the Medford Police and Fire Department to do a friendly flag football game. uh, to get the kids, um, Build a little part, uh, build on our partnership with those 22 entities right now. Uh, the game will be at Hormel Stadium. It is open to the public. We're asking for $5 donation from people that help help benefit the team. You're all more than welcome to come. And if you guys want to play a couple snaps, be my guest. We'll get you a T shirt. We'll get you some flags and we'll have a little bit of fun. The other event we are pushing right now is this year is the 85th anniversary of Medford becoming the Mustangs. So we're trying to do a series of events. throughout the summer and season. So we've been asking the public to, if they have any photos, old videos, old, anything cool that they want to share that, you know, we've been trying to do Facebook posts every day to get some cool info and stuff that, you know, even I didn't know existed, but, If you do our Facebook page, just message us what you have my emails on there. Yeah, I appreciate your time. It's tough. We don't have a newspaper, but I know a lot of people watch this and I was appreciate that you guys let me come up here.
[Chris Murphy]: Well, I can't echo how awesome Coach Curley has been making these kids great citizens. John wanted to be here tonight. He had family stuff to do. So he sent me but I think the best way I can say is I don't know if you remember this, but 23 years ago, the day before Thanksgiving, you came up and talked to us. I did. I don't know if you remember what you said, but I'll share it. You know, just because you put on a blue and white shirt doesn't make you a Mustang. You have to earn it. You have to you know, get out your, your not only athletes, but your students and your citizens and we take that's something that we strive on and something that we have instilled in these kids and these kids have take that take that the heart and I think they've gone above and beyond being great citizens in this community. We're proud of the kids who've graduated and how they've gone and given back to the community. I can't say enough about the fine young men and women we have on the Nifflin High School football team.
[Chris Murphy]: Oh, yeah.
[Chris Murphy]: But I think I think you would, you'd say the while back, you know, we've lost a lot of great people in the last year or two. And you've said, who's going to be there to kind of pick that up. And thank you. I'm happy to say that, you know, as long as I'm my children a lot.
[Chris Murphy]: I mean, it's, those are some, some, um, yeah, I've, I've learned, I've got great, great mentors and I'm glad that we're putting that on a new generation of people. I know. And, uh, like the other night, I mean, the second the guy said, Oh, this table's done this many boxes. I, you know, the kids we had kind of just said, Oh no, no. And they, If there was like a packaging firm that saw how these kids would all have jobs by the end of that night, I think these kids finished with the first table to finish by like 45 minutes. So like they, you know, they turned into a little competition. And at the same time, they, like I said, they were able to.
[Chris Murphy]: I said I hope to see you guys July, July 14th and. Let me know if you want to play.
[Chris Murphy]: Hold on one second. Is that better?
[Chris Murphy]: That better? Yep, that's better. I just want to thank Councilor Scarpelli for putting this on and for giving these kids the recognition for doing this. One of the things that John Curley, you know, said to me when he first took this job is trying to make these kids, you know, they're going to be good students. They're going to be good athletes, but they're going to be better citizens. And over the last four years, the amount of stuff that these kids have done and have gotten to, you know, into the community is, is been outstanding. Um, I wish I could take credit for some of it, but I can't, um, this has been 100% coach curly. Um, You know, I get texts all the time from him saying, you know, I had this idea. Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we do that? You know, right now we're doing a gift card drive for the Metric Family Network for the high school and middle school students. We have drop-off boxes at the rink and the high school athletic office. I just wanted to plug that real quick, but I can't thank you guys enough for giving these kids and Coach Curley the recognition for this. And, you know, I know our wins and losses have been great, but one thing, you know, Mustang Nation can take pride in is that these kids are becoming great citizens and great parts of this community. So I thank you guys again.
[Chris Murphy]: Chris Murphy, uh, 51 shared now. I'm also the president of the Method Football Associates, which is the booster club football team. I just want to come up with being a week before the game and just give a couple quick things about the game. Um, I'm happy that constant cover yellow brought this up. The Fenway is letting us honor to, uh, great alumni, Miss Kelowna as well as Mrs. and pal. They're gonna be honorary captains for the team. Those are no mystery and pal. He's basically the godfather of Mustang Nation at this point. So we're going to get the schools having the pleasure of honoring two great guys who have done a lot to build on the history of this team. We have a lot of great things going on with the school and with the team also in the week. Tomorrow night they're doing a unified flag football game at McDonnell Field at four o'clock tomorrow with the Medford Malden school students. The school team will be there also to cheer them on, help them out. We're also going to be doing a sub-varsity game after that at 5.30, which has become kind of like a little tradition. The week before our sub-varsity, our more sophomores and freshmen will be playing Malden sophomores and freshmen. Then we also have a lot of dinners coming up with the Malden Rotary Club. We're doing our tradition dinner, Sunday with the team and then John Burley's is doing their dinner next week and then the pep rallies next Tuesday. I just wanna remind the people, the public, that you have to buy your tickets for the game in advance. They're not gonna be selling tickets at the door. You can go to the Red Sox website on their ticket section and buy them their $20 a ticket. That gets you into both games as well. We are playing the second game. We're hoping for like a 7.30, 7.45 kickoff, depending on how long I believe it's O'Brient and Boston English game, which is gonna be played before Oscos. This is really an exciting thing. I mean, this is the 135th time that this game is gonna be played. It's been the third oldest in the country. First game was played November 25th, 1889. It's been played every year since 1891. So there's been a lot of great history with this game. I'm glad that this is going to build off that history. The record doesn't show the great strides that this team has made. They have an amazing coach. John Curley has done a wonderful job with this team these last four years. This team is a young team, a lot of first-year starters. They've done only two wins right now, but they've been in a lot of games this year. We're hoping to end it on a great note. Hope to see you all there. Hope to see a great presence from the city and go Mustangs. Mr. Murphy, yes.
[Chris Murphy]: Oh yes. And the kids know and hopefully we'll be singing that a lot next Tuesday at Fenway. A lot of great things will be on podcast. Maybe they're covering the games are going to have a great. hosting, there's gonna be a lot of coverage on their stuff. I know they have to do with the athletic directors and they're gonna be at a couple of the things we have leading up to. So people can go on their site to check out some of the build up to this game.
[Chris Murphy]: They were out there. Uh, we did, uh, we got about six people that requested us. I did have to teach a couple of kids how to rake a leaf. Uh, there was, uh, definitely some teaching going on, but yeah. Um, and it just, I go back to how awesome of a coach John Curley's baton is. Um, we sat down, uh, a couple of days after he was hired and. He said, I want to make them good players, I want to make them good students, and I want to make them good human beings. And that is definitely a tough thing, not being able to do a lot of stuff with COVID, now that it's kind of eased up, we'll be able to go out there and do these things. And you see them at cheerleading competitions, and at the unified basketball games, and all this stuff. They've become very visible in the community, and they've done a great job with, you know, I always say you're a student athlete second, but you're a model citizen first. It's one thing I always stress to them. They've taken that to heart and we've gotten them out there and they've done some great things.
[Chris Murphy]: And I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be remiss to sit here and say that John and, John and I are both kind of products of you. And you, I would say that, you know, the 20, 24 years ago that I met you and you and Coach Pear got together and said, You're not just soccer players and football players, you guys are Mustangs and got us out there. That's rubbed off on John, that's rubbed off on me, and now, gratefully, you're, 24 years later, it's rubbing off on the future generation of Mustangs.
[Chris Murphy]: I will say when you talk about the tradition of this game, I mean, not to knock, this is the first, I think, city council in the last seven decades that hasn't had a football alumni on it. Councilor Falco, Councilor Miyako, Councilor Skerry. Freshman, I'm sorry, a freshman, we have a freshman football alumni over here. Councilor Caraviello doesn't have that Caraviello blood in him, so we still have that Caraviello blood going through it. And I will say, I tell people this, the four greatest feelings in my life have been the birth of my children, the day I married my wife, and beating Malden. I'm not going to tell you what order they are. I'm happy that this rivalry is starting to take a good shape and that we have this great opportunity to build some excitement for the program.
[Chris Murphy]: Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, we have two great, the two FI directors have been awesome with trying to build a great week leading up to this. And yeah, there is that, you know, I hate to use the word hatred, but there also is that, you know, respect for the tradition of this game and what it means to not only us as Mustangs, but also to the Golden Tornadoes. And I've been president of this organization now for about eight years on the board for the last 10 or 11. And I just have, to continue being part of this game every year, it's just, it's amazing. My kids, I was able to take my son to his first Method Molding game last year. My daughter, one of our annual traditions, we take a photo at every first home game, and she loves it. She's a huge fan, and it brings me back to, and I'm sure a lot of you here remember your dad taking you to your first Medford-Malden game, and I'm glad that I've been able to do that. I mean, like I said, 100 and 135 games is, you know, we have a, I believe one kid, Justin Marino is a sophomore. He's going to be the third member. He's a third member of his family who's played in this game. And so it's, it's one of those multi-generational traditions that you're happy, like, you know, there's, like I said, I've talked to people who don't have that kind of tradition that we have. And they've, like some of them has played multiple different Thanksgiving rivalries. Everett doesn't even have a Thanksgiving game and we're lucky enough to know we're in our 130th game. So it's something that we can be very proud of as a city to be able to have.
[Chris Murphy]: I know the band is going to be there doing the doing the, I believe I talked to Director Miller, the band will be doing the National Anthem. I know the Medford Police, Medford Mountain Police Honor Guard will also be there doing, I'm not sure about halftime though.
[Chris Murphy]: I know they will be there doing the National Anthem. Great, great program.
[Chris Murphy]: Yeah.
[Chris Murphy]: You could play it. And like I said, you know, it's not just us. It's like I said, the band, the cheerleaders.
[Chris Murphy]: I can sit up here and talk all day.
[Chris Murphy]: I can't wait. Like I said, these seniors this year have a chance to be the first senior class in a long time to have a chance to go out with two wins against Malden. So I'll be there cheering them on. I hope I'll have you all there cheering them on, and the whole city there cheering them on.
[Chris Murphy]: I'll get Larry out. 38 degrees right now is what they're called. 38 degrees.
[Chris Murphy]: Thank you guys so much for your time.
[Chris Murphy]: Chris Murphy, 51 shared now. I'm also a member of the park commission. I know we are going to meet Thursday on this to talk about how we go forward with not only the pond, the pool and all the fields. I think we should have a, um, keep you all in the loop. We're meeting Thursday night and hopefully we'll have a better answer for you guys going forward on the pool, the pond and the fields with pace too. So I just want to let you guys know that we are, um, as a board going to talk about that stuff on Thursday night.
[Chris Murphy]: It's something we, we, we, we're going to be talking about Thursday now that we I believe we just got guidelines today. I haven't looked at them in depth yet, but it's something we're all going to be able to talk. We'll have a better understanding Thursday, because as you guys have seen, things could change between now and then, so. Thank you, Chris.
[Chris Murphy]: Chris Murphy, 70 Windsor Road.
[Chris Murphy]: I know you want that. I just want to let people know they can still join the team. You can sign up that day, make a donation, get your head shaved that day, or you can join the team online at buzzforkids.org, actually join the team, and then you can solicit donations through the website. If there is anybody watching that wants to donate, online that can't go is buzzforkids.org and just search team emo and you can donate directly to the team and we do you can still sign up you can join that day. We have teachers, board and commission members, we have cops, firemen, I think we have a DPW guy. We don't have any elected officials yet. We have women on the team. I think we have three women on the team this year. We have three women who are buzzing their heads so far. Just saying. So it's going to be periodic. It's going to be periodic. Between 8, 830, I know the firefighters, I think, have said they're going to be coming in throughout the night, getting their head shaved, some of the cops as well. Can I shave one of their heads, please? Periodically throughout the night, I think you'll see. We're going to try to spread it out. It's going to be a really fun event. We had a really great time last year. You know, Anthony's been doing this for a couple of years now. It was his goal to us to do this. You know, our goal is to make it bigger and bigger and bigger and, you know, eventually just, you know, an all-day affair one day, hopefully. And you guys in the City Council have been excellent. John Brewer's Tavern has been awesome in helping us with this. So we're really looking forward to this. We're looking to, you know, we set a goal of 10,000. Hopefully we beat that.
[Chris Murphy]: I don't think you have a set amount of money you have to raise as an individual when you do a community buzz off. So it's just all the money that's raised through the community goes to the actual charity. So we can be a little looser on what people actually have to raise to participate.
[Chris Murphy]: Brockton?
[Chris Murphy]: I just want to piggyback on what he said. I've been part of the booster board for about six years now. I just took over as the president this year. I know most of you have kids and you fundraise for your kids' sports teams and activities. You know how hard it is to get donations and to get a grant of this size. It really is going to really help us. We've had uniforms we've had, we've had them for six years now. The booster clubs bought those. The average life of a uniform is like four to five years. So it's going to be good to make a dent in that. It's also, you know, get some things to help, you know, take our program to the next level. So we're really excited as a board to receive this. It was great news when I got the email from Bobby saying that we received this great honor. So thank you. And I hope you guys will approve it.
[Chris Murphy]: Thank you. Mr. Murphy, you're next. While I have you all here, I just want to invite you all. June 18, we're going to have our big fundraiser we do every year. It's 12th year we've done it, the Push-Up-A-Thon. It's going to be at 3 o'clock at the high school. You guys are all more than welcome to come down, time some push-ups that the kids do. It's one of our biggest fundraisers, and the kids have a lot of fun. I can do two. Are we doing push-ups? You guys, if you want to. I know George can do like five push-ups. I can do two. No, no, no. Two. So what time is this? On the 18th? It's at 3 o'clock, June 18th, at the gymnasium.