Saint Frances Academy, the oldest continually operating Black Catholic school in the United States, has fielded Maryland’s top-ranked high school football team without ever having a field of its own. On Tuesday, the East Baltimore school broke ground on its first.
The Cordish Field will sit on a vacant lot on East Chase Street in Johnston Square, directly across from the campus at 501 East Chase. The $1.5 million project is paid for by three donors: Jack Leuetkemeyer, developer David Cordish and Ben Griswold. The Catholic Review and The Baltimore Banner both report that it will be natural grass and that the neighborhood can use it too.
The Oblate Sisters of Providence, led by Mother Mary Lange, opened the school in 1828 to teach Black children to read. Nearly two centuries later its student body is still predominantly African American. It got a community center gym in 2001. A field took until now.
Until then the team made do with other people’s. According to the Banner, players have practiced at BGE Field in Cherry Hill, Patterson Park, Curtis Bay and Park Heights, crossing the city after class.
Head coach Messay Hailemariam, who has led the program since 2011, said at the groundbreaking: “I’d love to see what our odds are once we have this field.” Deacon B. Curtis Turner, the school’s head of school, said the field matters beyond the team: “The practice is kind of a big deal. And it’s not just football.”
City Councilmember Jermaine Jones put it as a warning to opponents: “If you thought they were a problem when they didn’t have a practice field, they could really be a problem once they get one.”
The field does not end the money problem. The Banner reports that the school must raise about $1.2 million a year to run the football program. A school with this history and this record should not depend on three benefactors for a patch of grass, and the city and state that cheer its trophies could have helped long ago. The donors did what they did not.
Hailemariam’s team is 6-2 this season, according to the Banner. Its first game on its own field is still to be scheduled.
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