When he was a football player at Newport Central Catholic, Terry Brown and his teammates never won but they helped lay a foundation for future greatness in the program.
Now, as the first-year head football coach at NewCath, Brown is trying to pour concrete and build bricks for a new championship era at the school.
NewCath has championship facilities on its campus for the first time. The school is using a new on-campus stadium for games and practices. The Ciafardini Family Athletic Complex was opened for partial use in April and is now a full-fledged game venue with a press box, concessions and large video scoreboards.
NewCath plays soccer games there and opened the football season Aug. 21 with a home game against Lloyd Memorial, which the visitors
won 21-3.
“You see the facility; it's just a great facility,” Brown said. “You take pride every day. You come out here to practice knowing ... all the people that laid the groundwork before us. Former alumni, coaches and all that stuff. I just remind the players at least once a week, if not every other day, of all the hard work, of all the people that laid the groundwork before us and the pride that we carry every time we take the field.”
The field is named after Bob Schneider, the longtime head football coach at NewCath who retired in 2009 and died in 2021. He collected 343 career wins in 44 seasons, currently fifth in Kentucky history. His name is painted in big letters in the middle of the turf as “Robert J. Schneider Field.”
Brown, a 2000 NCC graduate, played for Schneider. He has fond memories of his former coach and his longtime assistant Tom Potter, who died in 2003.
As a player, Brown experienced records of 1-9 and 4-8 his final two years. The next two years, Schneider led the program to the Class 1A state final, losing to Danville in 2000 and 2001.
Brown rejoined the program as an assistant coach in 2003, helping Schneider and the Thoroughbreds win a state title in 2005. Eventually, he coached at Pendleton County and Campbell County, then joined the staff at Covington Catholic in 2015 with former NewCath standout and head coach Eddie Eviston, who was a former teammate of Brown’s. As defensive coordinator, Brown helped CovCath win state titles in 2017 and 2019.
“As soon as you walk through that concourse area, first thing you see is Robert Schneider Field,” Brown said. “And that just means something playing underneath Coach Schneider. He was the first one who gave me my first coaching opportunity back in 2003. I was lucky enough to be on a staff in 2005 to won a state championship. And he and Mr. Potter gave me my first start. They laid the groundwork, my foundation. And I just try to instill the characteristics that Coach Schneider instilled in me, I try to do the same with these young men.”
Nestled into the green space on top of a steep hill where students have a majestic view of downtown Cincinnati, the stadium has one of the more picturesque views in Northern Kentucky.
For many seasons, NewCath played its home games at Newport High School. In recent years, NewCath has played all over the region, including Covington Catholic, Holy Cross and Thomas More College.
Anywhere but home.
“Just seeing all these alumni, people supporting us,” senior Vander Hundemer said. “I just feel like we all got something to play for. All these people who were here before us. It’s an honor to be the first seniors on this field.”
NewCath had a tough loss to Lloyd, which reached the 3A state semifinals last year and is projected to make a similar run this year. Players said the defense played well but they needed to do a better job finishing drives on offense. NCC plays at Paintsville this week and next plays at home Sept. 11.
“We didn’t get the job done against Lloyd, but we're going to keep working hard and a lot of people are going to be surprised with our team this year,” Hundemer said.
Now, they can walk out of their school locker room and onto the field. For the first football game, supporters roamed the campus, having a tailgate party and welcoming their Thoroughbreds onto the new field.
“It was awesome when we walked through the tailgate and saw all of our fans and all the people who had our backs and all the people who came and supported us,” sophomore Will Meyer said. “Our bleachers were completely full. It was crazy.”
Meyer loves the new routine and not getting on a bus to go to every game.
“It's an honor to get to be the first team to play up here,” he said. “All these other teams wanted this and all the alumni helped get us this and (I'm) just very grateful to play on the field. My whole family went here and being at New Cath, everyone on this football team, everyone in the school, they're all my family. There’s nowhere I'd rather be.”
They hope the convenience of having a home field will help grow the program and take the next step to regain their championship pedigree. NewCath has been consistently strong but has not won a state title since 2012 and hasn’t been to the state finals since 2015. Stephen Lickert won 68 games in eight seasons with the program, 8.5 per year, before leaving to take the principal’s job at Withrow High School.
“Coach Schneider always said that we laid the foundation because the year after that, the next few years they went to the state championship,” Brown said. “We only had, I think, nine seniors my senior year, but we just grinded and got after it and laid the foundation for those younger guys, and we take pride in that.”
Brown grew up in Silver Grove, and instead of going to Silver Grove High School and eventually working for the city’s flagship company, Lafarge Gypsum (now CertainTeed), he went to NewCath and played football.
“I was able to get a football scholarship,” Brown said. “It really gave me a chance, an opportunity to get out, play college ball. It got me into coaching, and it kind of led a career to it. Football's been great. So I always tell anybody that if you ever get a chance in this sport, you got to try to pay it back.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: NewCath football seniors grateful for first on-campus stadium, new era
