About Ed Skiffington

“He was a builder like no other” – so said former Purple Knight and Honoured Member of the Sports Hall of Fame, Joyce Slipp. He coached football for 24 years, basketball for 27, and track and field for 33. As an accredited international basketball official he helped raise the skills of his fellow referees in New Brunswick.

He provided additional leadership to sport camps, Canada Games teams, softball associations and Legion programs and projects. He still found time to be a superb physical educator, intramural sport promoter, community leader, hospital volunteer and family man.

A native of Sommerville, Mass., “Coach” took up residence in Moncton in 1957. He has been honoured by many for his work with young athletes. He is now recognized for a life-time of dedication to sport itself.

In addition, it was Skiffington who gave the Purple Knights their name, in the process becoming one of the first high schools in the province to officially adopt a team name.

Enrolled in the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame, June 5th, 2004

Skiffington-Edmund

Meet our Committee

Our group consists of community members, school officials and alumni from Moncton High school. The group was created just over two years ago to bring to fruition a much needed playing field to our new school.
Our new school is a beautiful new building in the Irishtown area of Moncton. When they closed down the old school its was our understanding that the new facility would have an adequate sports field but that didn’t happen. Our group behind Parent School Support Committee Chair Sheila Cameron rallied a group to fix this huge issue. One of the reasons we wanted a  high performance turf field was to try and stay on par with the other City of Moncton High Schools Bernice MacNaiughton and Harrison Trimble who within the last ten years got high performance fields.
Key alumni and community members along with Moncton High Principal Mike BeLong made up the executive committee. The committee felt strongly that it was not fair to ask the alumni and community to raise money for the field alone so the process began with a lot of meetings and hard work to bring about partnerships. In the end the scope of the project would entail a fund -raising campaign that could bring about 2.25 million dollars. Fortunately, through many meetings the partnerships came about and the City of Moncton along with the province made commitments of $750,000 each for a total of 1.5 million. In turn, the third partner would be the MHS community and alumni.

Mike Belong

On behalf of the Moncton High School Legacy Campaign Committee I would like to thank you, the alumni, community partners and parents for your time in reviewing our project. We feel this project will provide an excellent resource forMoncton High school as well as for Greater Moncton.

Mike Belong

Sharon Geldart

As a 1964 alumni of MHS, I feel the importance of supporting this worthwhile project. I played basketball under Ed Skiffington’s leadership and enjoyed being a cheerleader when he brought Football to MHS!

Sharon Geldart

Mike Robart

I quickly jumped on the opportunity to serve the MHS community on the committee to build a new field when Principal Belong asked.  We have 3 generations of family who have graduated from MHS as well as my father and I played football for Coach Skiffington.  I feel very fortunate to give back in this way to provide facilities named after Coach for the current and future generations to enjoy.

Mike Robart
Principal BeLong - Homecoming

A Message from the Principal

Mike Belong

On behalf of the Moncton High School Legacy Campaign Committee I would like to thank you, the alumni, community partners and parents for your time in reviewing our project. We feel this project will provide an excellent resource for Moncton High school as well as for Greater Moncton.

The project is to bring about the ‘Ed Skiffington Alumni Field to the school. Moncton High has had a long standing tradition of athletics in our great province. This tradition of excellence started many years ago under the founder of New Brunswick Interscholastic Athletic Association Mr. Ed Skiffington. Mr. Skiifington taught most of his career at Moncton High but will always be remembered as the pioneer to athletics in New Brunswick high schools. At the old school we had a field that was minimal at best and it was our hope that with the new school and with a better facility that the field would be much improved. Unfortunately, this was not what transpired and we are now moving in this direction to rectify the situation.

Its important to know that the demographics of the Greater Moncton community have changed over the years and Moncton High, unlike many of its formative years includes many underprivileged families, as well as the largest International cohort in the district. Included within this cohort would be new immigrants to Canada, including refugee families. This dynamic makes our school very diverse and our needs are plenty to say the least.

As you are probably aware the City of Moncton has a reciprocal agreement with Anglophone East School District and because of this, the facility we are raising money for will not just go to supporting Moncton High students but in turn will be a wonderful resource for all citizens of Moncton. Whether it is minor soccer, minor football or adult recreational leagues it will be a huge benefit to the community. This will allow the city and province an added facility to host National and International events.

The success of our ‘Legacy Campaign will depend on the generous donations of our alumni, community members and parents. The scope of the project will range from two to two point two-five million dollars. We currently have commitments of up to one point six million with a goal of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of additional fundraising.

We fully understand that many of you give so much to the community already, but we really need your support with this project. With eighty plus years of alumni, I’m confident that we can make this project a huge success.

    Give us a call!
    506-856-3439

    Email us directly!
    info@mhsfield.com