Sean Kirst: Roosevelt Field
In Shadow of State Football Playoffs, City Dreams — Old and New — at Roosevelt Field
by Sean Kirst (December 7, 2025) — Story references Syracuse Firefighters Tom Humberstone and Ken Kinsey
The following column recounts some rich football history — as well as dreams for the future — at the old Roosevelt Field on Brighton Avenue, once the capital of high school football in Central New York. Columnist Sean Kirst is interested in your memories: If you recall the days when Roosevelt reigned as the region’s premier high school field, email Kirst at skirst@centralcurrent.org, and he’ll collect those thoughts in a followup piece.
Sixty-two years after making the best split-second football decision of his life, Tony Dottolo looked out last Thursday from inside his idling SUV as a fierce snow squall swallowed up the field where it happened — though the storm hardly diminished his memory of an intense high school huddle and a pivotal call Dottolo made for his teammates on third down.
At 79, those memories were sparked by his return after many years to Brighton Avenue’s Roosevelt Field, next to what’s now Brighton Middle School Academy — a structure built a century ago as the old Theodore Roosevelt Junior High. In 1963, Dottolo was a senior quarterback on a once-beaten Eastwood High team that went up against powerful Christian Brothers Academy, which was atop the old City League and rolling with a 12-game winning streak.