Huffington Magazine Issue 9 | Page 74

At least eight Briarcliff students have had cancer. Here, Jenny shows off her tattooed “D.” in rememberance of Demetri. DEC that there was still a softball field right behind the school that was also built on Whitney fill. By 2007, Briarcliff parents were starting to complain about the fields. The athletes at Briarcliff were coming across strange things on the field during practice; a six or eight-inch nail here, a shard of glass there. One time, they found some wire. “We would just pull that stuff off and throw it over the fence,” says Andrew Paulmeno, 21, who played several seasons of football at Briar- HUFFINGTON 08.12.12 cliff and now attends the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. While debris was a mere annoyance, dust made the field almost unbearable. Grass was dying on the field and as the season wore on, Paulmeno says it was like playing on dirt. “You’d come back from practice, you’d pick your nose and you’d be pulling out solid black,” he recalls. “There was a permanent dust in the air. You couldn’t breathe without getting it in every part of your face or head. It was caked into your skin when you were done. It was everywhere.” Some of the athletes said they had trouble breathing, and ac- SUDDEN DEATH