North Jersey drivers headed to New York City on Friday will need to be aware of game traffic near Yankee Stadium.
It may be lighter than usual, since the Yankees will be in Houston. But just across 161st Street at Macombs Dam Park, the Bogota High School football team is scheduled to open its season against Capital Prep of Harlem at 2 p.m.
“They were going to actually come here, but I thought it’d been a cool experience to get over there,” Bucs coach Brian Appleton said Tuesday. “It’s going to be a cool location for us. Kids are looking forward to it.”
Here is everything you need to know about Bogota’s first out-of-state game since 2009.
‘Capital’ idea
Bogota is about to kick off its fourth season in the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference’s Union Division, which features a lighter league schedule for small-school teams trying to increase participation.
“With our conference, we’re very limited with the games we’re getting,” Appleton said. “I knew we needed another game, so I posted on a website, and the coach over at Capital Prep reached out, showed some interest.
“We exchanged film, just to see if we would be a good fit against each other, and I think we both decided it would be a competitive game.”
The Lions play all of their home games at Macombs Dam Park, located one-and-a-half miles from their campus, according to Google Maps. However, the park is operated by the New York City Parks and Rec Department.
“It’s been a little bit of a mess though, in terms of the timing,” Appleton noted. “It was supposed to be a 7 o’clock game, then got moved to 5, then to 2… it’s opening weekend [for New York], so I’m sure there’s a handful of games going on.”
The last time…
Appleton was on the Bucs’ staff as an assistant for their previous venture to New York. It was Oct. 23, 2009, and Bogota defeated Marlboro Central, 34-6, on a rainy day in Ulster County.
“The turf was literally bubbling up from the rain,” Appleton recalled. “I remember it was pretty cool. They put us up, and we had lunch with the other team.”
According to NorthJersey.com archives, Bogota is 6-1 all-time against New York opponents, and three of those games were played on Empire State soil.
The first time…
The Bucs’ first coach, Jimmy LaRue, led the program in 1924-25. By 1927, he had moved on to Woodmere (N.Y.) and called upon his old school to start a home-and-home series.
Bogota won the first meeting in New Jersey, 19-6, then traveled to Long Island for the rematch on Oct. 6, 1928. The recap published in the Bergen Evening Record two days later shows that the game took place at Hewlett Athletic Field – at the time, located near the land which 20 years later became Idlewild (now JFK) Airport.
“La Rue’s Woodmere Eleven Crushed By Bogota High, 31-0,” the headline read.
The Bucs played at Pearl River in Rockland County later that season and prevailed, 18-0, and did not return to New York State until the Marlboro Central contest 81 years later.
