Night time is right time at last at Manual Arts

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Bring on the night -- night football, that is.

Manual Arts is one of the oldest City Section schools and its football teams have won 17 section championships. But there’s one thing the Toilers have never done: play a night game on their home field.

That will change Friday, when Manual hosts West Adams Prep at 7 p.m. School administrators are spending an estimated $8,000 of student body funds to pay for portable lights and added security in an effort to fill its 2,000 stadium.

‘Our new principal Mr. (Edward) Tremis insisted we go ahead and do it,’ Athletic Director Wanda Szeremeta said. ‘And we hope to do it more than once. One of my goals is for us to install permanent lights here.’

Manual last won a City championship in 1984. Recently, the football program has fallen on hard times; the Toilers have gone 2-28 dating to the 2004 season. Their last win was on Sept. 16, 2005, against Pioneer. The team is currently gripped by an 18-game losing streak, the latest defeat coming last week against Westchester, 50-20. It’s also playing under its third coaching staff in the last four years.

Szeremeta said she was encouraged that more than 200 students came out for football this season and more than 100 remain on the varsity and frosh-soph teams ‘even though many of them are playing football for the first time.’

Now her attention turns to reviving interest in the team within the local community.

‘It doesn’t help our school spirit to only play day games at home,’ Szeremeta said. ‘We want to have kids and community embrace Manual Arts again, and give our kids something to do in the evenings that is safe.’

And there’s the chance to break that losing streak. West Adams Prep (0-2) is in its first year of playing varsity football.

- Mike Terry