After taking a brief survey on getting naming rights for our fields at Darien High School numbers came out to an impressive result of 58.3% ratio of Yes to 41.7% No as of March 3rd 2026 from our students. These results may have come close but students think it would be smart to have naming rights for the athletic facilities at our high school. Legends have been built at DHS in terms of athletics and in current success, we’ve had a visit from Stanley Cup winning goal-tender Spencer Knight from the Florida Panthers who attended DHS in his freshman year of 2015-16 then transferred to Avon Farms Hockey to build better stature.
In examples of schools with naming rights, there are a lot both in and out of the FCIAC but to focus more on the FCIAC, we have A few schools to mention here, including New Canaan, Brien McMahon, Norwalk, and a few others.
Picture via NHL.com|Chicago Blackhawks Vs Boston Bruins
As opposed to naming rights in Darien, we can only see our rival New Canaan who have excelled in the naming rights department in terms of athletics and brings up places like “Coppo Field” for baseball and “Dunning Field” for football and other main stadium sports that the field is used for.
According to an article published on the NewCanaanite in January of 2026 James Dunning was a New Canaan native and was one of two people to fund $750,000 in donations and yet received recognition along with fellow resident Rodney Hawes now formally naming the field “Dunning field” in Hawes Plaza. In terms of baseball Coppo Field originates from another New Canaan native, Joe Coppo, who was an avid supporter of New Canaan baseball but lost his life in September of 2001.
Brien McMahon has been known to be dedic
ated to high school for naming rights for sports but usually it would go towards the standard Norwalk Bears who have named their fields after famous New Englanders like Nathan Hale for some circumstances it happens to coincide with their sports like baseball and others while Nathan Hale Middle School sits next to Norwalk High School taking and having an influence on the athletic infrastructure of the Norwalk’s athletic facilities.
Picture via Ruden Report | New Canaan’s Maddox Hoffman (with an assist from Connor Furman) fights his way over the goal line.
When it comes to athletics of Darien High School, the tradition runs through the town’s roots and history. The school’s dominance is shared among several sports at different times, which makes it so much easier to love the town and the high school. When it comes to donations and funding we look at the Wave Booster club, which happens to be people who save the District money but also use it to upgrade our athletics programs and create events for our school. These people are the ones we thank for what happens behind the scenes, and they can be the people who can help boost funding for naming rights.
In a brief conversation with Darien Athletic Director, Mr. Chris Manfredonia, he gave some insight into how it would work if it did happen and how it would boost Darien’s athletic reputation. He also talked about how it would start with a policy that can be formed and people can discuss which name goes to which field or gym, tying back to the previous paragraph that talked about collaboration of the town and the booster club. Manfredonia also has some perspective, “you know, it would start with a policy being developed, you know, and have to go through that process, you know, both at the town and the border bed level. Um, and then, you know, we’ve had a lot of successful coaches here at the school, and I think you’d have to start with, you know, which coaches, um, or which individuals, I should say, would want to, you know, would make the most sense. Um, I think we probably have to start with some kind of a committee, you know, both current and past.” After speaking with him we now come to the conclusion that naming rights are possible just not at this moment for Darien.
