Aliquippa football ready to embrace 'The New Pit' this season
ALIQUIPPA, Pa. (KDKA) — As most Western Pennsylvanians already know, high school football is taken very seriously in the area - especially in Aliquippa where their beloved Quips have won more WPIAL titles than any other school.
This fall, a new batch of players will get a chance to do something no Aliquippa student has done in almost 90 years: play in a brand-new stadium.
Last summer, Carl Aschman Stadium in Aliquippa was completely torn apart. After a full year of renovation, the stadium long known as 'The Pit' has undergone a complete transformation and will be ready for opening night this fall.
"As a graduate and former player at Aliquippa, it gives me great pride to be able to provide the players a safe environment where they can play and not have to worry about injury or worry about the field running down where we have to rent facilities," said Aliquippa Superintendent Dr. Phillip Woods.
Renting facilities was all Aliquippa could do last season when the original 'Pit' was being torn up, that included renting other schools' fields just to hold practice.
"I felt like a travel agent sometimes," said Aliquippa Athletic Director Jennifer Damico. "Every day I was checking to make sure we had a bus and a place to practice. Other teams were practicing so we'd have to practice at odd hours."
Despite that nomadic existence, the Quips just kept on winning. They captured their second consecutive, and 19th overall WPIAL championship, continuing a tradition of excellence that spans generations.
"I think every era continues to believe how strong Aliquippa football is and what Aliquippa football should be," said former Quips player John Evasovich who played in 1955. "All I can say is it's a feeling. Aliquippa is a feeling. It's an expectation to play well and be champions."
Their original stadium had a lot to do with that feeling. For decades, the Quips almost seemed unbeatable at home.
"They all looked forward to playing here no matter what," said longtime team doctor Patrick Sturm. "It wasn't really that the visiting team had a disadvantage or that the stadium was run down. They all remember 'The Pit.' They all remember the horse."
The horse Dr. Sturm referred to is part of a long-standing Aliquippa tradition. For decades, fans would rise and cheer when the Quips mascot rode in on the back of 'Tuffy' and planted a flaming spear to start each game. It's one of the few challenging aspects facing the district, trying to maintain the old school tradition while opening up a brand new facility.
"We are going to honor the traditions," Woods said. "Now, I can't promise that you'll see the horse every night, but the opening night we gotta have the horse come out. I'm going to come up with a plan because we need to see the horse on opening night. We just have to."
"It's still 'The Pit,'" said Evasovich. "The geographical area is still exactly as it was. Obviously, the field itself is different and the lights have changed but the feeling and the mystique of 'The Pit' still exists and I think it always will."
Exactly how they bring Tuffy back to plant a spear into that brand new field turf remains to be seen but one thing is for certain, the Quips will make their 2023 debut in the 'New Pit' on September 1 and the entire Aliquippa community can't wait.