By Margaret Carroll-Bergman – Correspondent
Before Joe Cushing died in 1993, he said he did not want a memorial bench.
“He wanted something the kids would enjoy,” said Ann Fossett, a friend of the Cushing family. “He did not want some passive something.”
Joe Cushing, who died of cancer at 53, had been president of Concord Youth Soccer for 10 years and left a small bequest to both Concord Youth Soccer and the Recreation Commission.
The two organizations worked together and used the bequest as seed money to fundraise for a level, regulation-size soccer field on the Peabody school property. The community embraced the plan and raised $120,000 in private funds toward the $155,000 landscaping project. Concord Recreation contributed the balance.
“The field was multi-level, and kids would get hurt on it,” said Carole Cushing, Joe’s wife, of the three-foot elevation difference between the upper and lower fields.
But now, as sixth grade students and their teachers ship off this month to the new $110-million Ellen Garrison Building at the Concord Middle School, they leave behind Sanborn, which will be demolished to make room for new fields, and the Peabody schoolhouse, which is slated to be mothballed. The future of Cushing Field is unknown.
“My first hope is they don’t ruin the field, and that they keep it,” said Carole Cushing.
Built and rebuilt
When the Peabody school was being built in the late 1960s, it was too expensive to blast to make the athletic field level, the Concord Journal reported. Decades later in 1995, during the Cushing Field renovation, fill was added to even out the land.
Though Carole Cushing did not take the field herself, she was a soccer mom. The Cushings’ three daughters and son were coached by their father.
“My dad grew up playing football and didn’t know the first thing about soccer,” said the Cushings’ daughter, Karen Sepucha. “When my siblings and I started playing, he bought every ‘how to coach soccer’ book and figured it out. As a coach, he wasn’t interested in advancing complicated strategies, but instead focused on helping each kid gain confidence and making sure we all had fun.”
Up in the air
In early February, the Concord School Committee declared the “Peabody School Property” as surplus. The Committee also recommended the transfer of the property, which includes Cushing Field, to the Select Board.
Because it takes a Town Meeting vote to transfer property from the School Committee to the Select Board, an article for the Peabody School Property transfer will be placed on the 2025 Town Meeting warrant.
For now, it is unclear what will become of Cushing Field. The Select Board did not mention a potential use for the Peabody School Property in its draft warrant article.
The Select Board is planning to discuss a committee charge to review this property and others this month, according to Deputy Town Manager Megan Zammuto.
Cushing Field may be protected by Article 97 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution, also known as the Open Space Act, from being used for any purpose other than recreation.
“The process for seeking ‘release’ of land protected by Article 97… has multiple steps including review by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and culminating in a vote of the Massachusetts House and Senate,” advised town counsel Anderson Kreiger in a January 14 memo to Town Manager Kerry Lafleur.
According to Sepucha, Joe Max Moore of the New England Revolution remarked at the 1997 dedication ceremony for Cushing Field that good-quality grass fields like Cushing Field are at a premium.
“In 2025, his observation still holds — grass fields like this are rare in town, and we hope there is a way to preserve this valuable resource for the community for years to come,” Sepucha said.
