This couple’s quest is to follow the games, no matter how far
Courtesy of Bill and Alayne Lowenberger
Super fans Bill and Alayne Lowenberger at Washington High School stadium
Courtesy of Bill and Alayne Lowenberger
Bill and Alayne Lowenberger returned to Washington High School Stadium recently to take a selfie. While there, they encountered Prexies head coach Mike Bosnic and his father, Mike Sr., a former scholastic head coach. “We had a great conversation,” Bill said.
He was New York City born, raised and educated, and developed an affinity for sports that would shape his career.
She was from Pittsburgh’s North Hills, an avowed non-sports fan even though her parents had Steelers season tickets dating to the 1960s. She liked marching bands and cheerleaders, but little else about athletics.
“I’d watch, but not know what was happening.”
In the 1980s, after he landed a job at the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press, Bill Lowenberger met Alayne Rosenfeld in what was really not a case of opposites attracting. They did have much in common, had a collegial courtship, married in 1986, and welcomed a daughter, Lauren, a year later.
The parents are now retired, Bill as a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Alayne as director of Jewish Scholarship Service in Squirrel Hill. They devote more than a share of their free time to tackling an improbable endeavor, an ambitious sports-related pastime that, according to Alayne, morphed into a quest – one with extensive Washington County roots.
For slightly more than a decade, this McCandless couple has been driven to drive to every stadium in the southwest corner of the state where high school football is played. Their objective is to take in a game, shoot photos of the venue or both. It is a quest, to be sure, one that has directed them to more than 120 stadiums where teams affiliated with the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League have competed.
The 2023 football season commenced Sept. 1 with 117 varsity teams vying for WPIAL glory. Some schools share stadiums, have been absorbed in mergers, dropped the sport or left the WPIAL. That 120-plus figure may be no longer applicable, but it is a barometer of the extent of the Lowenberger files.
And at some point, they pledge to return to South Allegheny, which christened its new stadium only a year ago – one that has eluded the couple thus far.
From West Greene to Erie to Hollidaysburg, the Lowenbergers have hit all other WPIAL venues, and chronicled their travels with photos and anecdotes – which makes them modest historians as well.
“We want to go to interesting stadiums and some places that are difficult to find,” said Alayne, possessor of a law degree.
Their saga slowly and quietly began in 2001, when Lauren was a freshman cheerleader at North Allegheny. They were devoted to their daughter and thus devoted to the freshman and varsity football squads, so they began to attend all contests.
“Bill started to explain the game to me,” Alayne said of her spouse, a lifelong Yankees fan and a former sports reporter at the Baltimore Sun, who covered high schools and the Baltimore Orioles on occasion. “I really got into it,” she said. “I started acting like I had a kid playing.”
Their interest increased even after their daughter sustained an injury as a junior that forced her to leave the cheer squad, and grew even more after she was college bound.
The couple started to branch out, selecting Friday night matchups of powerhouses or a contest featuring an outstanding player. They and Lauren attended WPIAL championship games for the first time in 2007 and reveled in North Allegheny’s three-year run (2010-2012) of WPIAL crowns.
Then in July 2012, following an invigorating shopping spree through Scenery Hill, the Lowenbergers’ quest to visit and photograph every WPIAL football location began in earnest.
“We were driving home through Bentleyville and saw a sign, ‘Bentworth High School Stadium,'” Bill recalled. “That would be the first stadium we photographed. We had been to a lot of places, but had not photographed them.”
A couple of months later, while shopping in Beaver, they photographed the stadiums of Beaver Area and Ambridge, alma mater of Alayne’s father. Bill and Alayne hoped to find Rochester along the way, and did so by following electrical towers. Their quest was gaining momentum.
The Beaver County excursion inspired them. “Our quest, it became organized,” Bill said. “We decided to visit clusters of schools in a specific area, hit two or three in the morning and maybe two or three in the afternoon.”
That was how they navigated the stadiums of Washington and Greene counties. In one day in 2013, the couple made it to venues of all five teams in Greene: Carmichaels Area, Jefferson-Morgan, Mapletown, Waynesburg Central and West Greene. They visited Avella, Canon-McMillan, Chartiers-Houston, Fort Cherry and McGuffey in one day in 2015, and Washington High and Trinity in 2018.
“We’ve also seen the covered bridges of Washington County and Greene County,” Alayne said, smiling.
The Lowenbergers’ quest, of course, included stadiums of the six Fayette County high schools: Albert Gallatin, Brownsville, Connellsville, Frazier, Laurel Highlands and Uniontown.
They found Uniontown’s stadium location to be distinctive, adjacent to the school and East Fayette Street, on a tract embellished by the “School of Champions” sign.
Bill was impressed by the “gorgeous view” from the Laurel Highlands stands and recalled how they took pictures at Brownsville after “the guards” left.
For the first few years of their quest, the Lowenbergers shot stadium photos during and after school hours. Since then, because of ramped-up school security, they’ve taken pictures when classes were not in session.
Alayne and Bill have encountered some resistance. Alayne said they were snapping photos at a school she declined to identify when “a woman charged out said we had to leave. We’ve never had anyone else act like that.”
They have been to Wash High twice, for photos, and both were pleasurable experiences. Yet they were a bit wary on their first visit inside the stadium, when a school district official walked toward them. “He was a bigger man and we thought we might be in trouble,” Alayne said. “He was really nice. He gave us a tour and the whole history of Washington High School.”
The Lowenbergers returned recently, to take a selfie that would accompany this article. While at the stadium, they encountered Prexies head coach Mike Bosnic and his father, Mike Sr., a former scholastic head coach. “We had a great conversation,” Bill said.
They also have attended two playoff games in Washington County, each featuring North Allegheny.
Other hobbyists, to be sure, have had smoother pursuits. Bill drove to where he thought Connellsville had a game, but didn’t. While trying to find the game site, he realized he had left his wallet on top of the car and it had fallen, never to be in his possession again.
They themselves also got lost numerous times in the earlier stages of their quest, when they traversed unfamiliar roadways without the assistance of GPS.
“Did we get lost? Certainly,” Alayne said. “We got lost so many times, which was fun.”
Architecture, top athletes and food also have been part of the equation. The Lowenbergers discovered that a large number of stadiums are either built into a hillside or have stands only on one side. They also enjoy seeing plaques, pictures and other memorabilia dedicated to outstanding players, and teams, who have passed through schools. They were attracted to the Highlands Ram, one of the statues that schools have dedicated to their mascot.
The cuisine, the couple acknowledged, can be interesting. There is a lot of standard stadium fare, but there are delicacies such as barbecue dishes at New Castle; Greek food from a local restaurant at Ambridge; and a Southwestern Pennsylvania special, halushka.
They also have made some outlandish excursions, to Altoona, Erie McDowell, Ligonier Valley and Hollidaysburg for WPIAL matchups, and to and from Hersheypark Stadium and other distant venues for state playoff games.
The Lowenbergers’ quest is ongoing, and they are eagerly anticipating another season.
“We’ve had such a great experience,” said Alayne Lowenberger, the erstwhile non-sports fan.