On May 7, 2025, the Town of New Canaan and the New Canaan Athletic Foundation turned a page in its baseball story—without ever closing the book on the past; celebrating the grand re-opening of Coppo Field, a state-of-the-art turf field and facility that is now the home of the Rams Varsity Baseball team—and a lasting tribute to one of the town’s most beloved sons: Joe Coppo.
Coppo, a longtime youth coach and league president, was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. He was a bond trader with Cantor Fitzgerald, but here, in this town, he was something else as well. “Baseball was his second love. Kids were his first,” his wife Pat said in 2003, when the field was first dedicated in his honor. “Whatever it took for kids to be learning, having fun and getting better… that’s what Joe did.”
On this afternoon, more than two decades later, their youngest son John Coppo returned to the field that first bore his father’s name—to throw the ceremonial pitch on its newly reborn turf. In 2003, a 15-year-old John had driven in the first two runs on the original Coppo Field. In 2025, he took the mound again—this time, as a father himself—delivering the pitch not for a score, but for memory.
And still, the crowd cheered.
Terry Dinan, longtime voice of New Canaan sports, served as emcee. “Joe’s spirit and legacy lives on in all who take the field to play,” Dinan said. “We know he would be proud to see the unveiling of the renovated Coppo Field today.”
The new facility, with its brick backstop, twin bullpens, turf surface and expanded dugouts, is a $5 million renovation that expands the town’s total turf footprint by 33%. It will host not only high school baseball but youth field hockey, flag football, and other fall sports.
“This is a cherished town asset,” said Mike Benevento, founding chair of the New Canaan Athletic Foundation. “It’s the product of a true public-private partnership that will serve generations of athletes.”
That idea of service—of giving back—was at the heart of Joe Coppo’s life. In 2003, sportswriter Mike Lupica stood before the crowd and repeated what he had written shortly after 9/11: “You don’t know Joe Coppo, but you do. Because there’s a Joe Coppo in every town. He’s the guy that looks out for the kids. And he’s the guy that makes sure the game is run right.”
Joseph Coppo, then a Boston College junior, said it plainly during the original dedication: “We know that my father’s legacy will never be forgotten.”
That legacy has endured—across chalk lines and decades.
In attendance at the 2025 re-opening were First Selectman Dionna Carlson, Selectman Steve Karl, Parks & Recreation Director John Howe, Superintendent Dr. Bryan Luizzi, Athletic Director Jay Egan, and many others, including the field’s landscape architect and contractors.
Back in 2003, Pat Coppo said of her husband, “He would coach anybody’s kid as long as they had a smile on their face and they walked off with a smile.”
