Rye High School’s 2023 football season, with all the ups and downs that ended in a New York state championship title last December at “The Dome” in Syracuse, has been captured from start to finish by a young sports journalist and filmmaker in a documentary now available for viewing on YouTube.
Ian Colalucci, a recent NYU graduate and Rye Record sports reporter who worked for the Rye City School District while completing his studies, was initially engaged by the parents of two RHS football players who wanted college-admission films highlighting their sons’ on-field talents. But then Aaron Griffiths, dad to Garnets’ receiver Shep Griffiths and then-president of the Rye Football Association, got involved.
The elder Griffiths, whose day job is creative director of his own advertising agency, had the idea to expand and fund Colalucci’s filmmaking so that it covered the whole team’s 2023 campaign.
“We thought we’d have a pretty good team in the summer before the season and asked Ian if he’d like to do the film of our kids,” Aaron Griffiths said. “I’m happy he said yes.”
“Garnet Pride, A Story of Legacy and Football,” is an hour-and-a-half-long documentary that begins the team’s 2023 odyssey with a practice at Nugent Stadium in the sweltering heat of late summer last year. Motivated by a loss the year before to rival Harrison, Coach Dino Garr’s team wants to turn the tables on the Huskies in the new season’s first game.
Photo courtesy Ian Colalucci
That’s only the first of many things that don’t go as planned for the Garnets at the start. Not long after losing to Harrison for a second straight year, the boys from Rye face Pleasantville, the reigning Section 1 Class B champ — and lose that one, too. With a 2-2 record; severe flooding in Rye that upsets their training routine; and news of a cancer diagnosis for Hamish Fenton, brother of Garnet player Archer Fenton, Garr’s players realize they need to take stock of themselves and then come together as a true team.
It’s a different Rye squad that then proceeds to win the rest of its games that season, including a payback victory against Pleasantville in the Section 1 title game. And Colalucci is there for it all.
Sprinkled among the film’s game footage are interviews with the players and coaches as well as segments with former Journal News reporter Kevin Devaney and observations from Rye’s longtime stadium announcer, “The Old Garnet” Steve Feeney.
“I really didn’t understand how much the culture of the football team permeates across the community,” the 22-year-old Colalucci said. “I was surprised at how many people wanted to contribute to this film.”
Photo courtesy Ian Colalucci
Garr, as the team’s longtime head coach, is featured throughout, from interviews in his office to instructions and pep talks on the sidelines. “Coach Garr isn’t one of those movie coaches who make rousing speeches at halftime,” said Devaney. “Instead, he just reminds the players of their assignments before sending them out in the second half — although he always manages to say, somewhere along the line, ‘I love you guys.’”
Much like “Hoosiers,” the 1986 movie about a small town Indiana high school basketball team that makes it to that state’s championship final, “Garnet Pride” winds up at New York state’s Class B football championship game in Syracuse. And, awed as they are about playing in The Dome, the guys with Garnet pride come through: Rye 28, Maine-Endwell 7.
Colalucci, who now works for ESPN at its headquarters in Bristol, Conn., doing research and production for show producers and on-air talent, said he hopes the giant sports network might screen his documentary someday. In the meantime, it can be seen anytime on YouTube.