Walk by the football field at your local high school on a Friday evening in the fall, and you are likely to hear the drone of a student section and the sounds of a game happening in the glowing limelight of huge overhead lights. At The Masters School however, despite having many thriving field sports teams, the fields are empty and dark as soon as the sun sets each day. Aside from not having a football team, Masters has no night games for one clear reason: there are no lights on any of the fields.   

The main roadblock for lighting up sports fields for night games is contention with the town of Dobbs Ferry. Athletic Director Alexis Di Domenico said, “The biggest thing holding it (the institution of field lights and night games) is approval from the town. There is concern about light pollution as well as noise pollution from the events, and there would also be more cars parked on Clinton.”  

Di Domenico mentioned that the school has attempted multiple times in the past to get approval for field lights. She said, “We tried in the past to even just get portable lights for big games, but up to this point it has never received approval from the town.”

Associate Head for Finance and Operations Andrew Schneider said, “It is very important to Masters to be a great neighbor with the Village of Dobbs Ferry, and it is the strong preference of homeowners in the village not to have bright athletic lights that pollute the evening sky and create additional noise and car traffic for corresponding events.”

However, many see the lights as being hugely beneficial. Jim Fabain ‘26 said, “I think it could create a really great atmosphere. Whenever you see a high school sports movie, they always have the night games under the huge bright lights. I feel like that is something we are sort of missing at Masters.”   

Di Domenico also spoke on some of the appeals of getting the lights approved. She said, “It would have so many benefits. We could have more teams playing on the turf as the games could go later. We could get more attendance, because a lot of people have work, and so night games would be more heavily attended. But also it’s just the atmosphere: it’s so different, and special and energizing.”