Lincoln’s new Wang Field is open for play

Lincoln’s first new athletic field in more than 50 years officially opened last week with a ribbon-cutting by Courtney Wang, the son of the couple whose land the field now occupies.

Computer entrepreneur An Wang and his wife Lorraine raised their children on Bedford Road close to Route 2. After Lorraine passed away in 2016, the Rural Land Foundation and the Birches School together bought the Wang’s 16-acre property. The house was renovated and became the school’s new permanent home, and the other 12 acres is now Wang Field.

Attendees at the April 24 ribbon-cutting ceremony applauded the people and groups that made the project possible: Geoff McGean, executive director of the RLF; Dan Pereira, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, which will oversee use of the field (purchased from the RLF by the town in 2017); the Ogden Codman Trust, which provided a seed grant of $50,000; Patty Donahue, who was instrumental in raising funds for the field construction; and Courtney Wang, who flew in from Texas for the occasion.

Wang (cofounder of O-File and a trustee of the Wang Foundation) told the story of playing in a smaller area close to his house as a boy. The little field was not exactly ideal, being uneven and rocky, so he asked his parents for help in fixing it up — but the answer was no. “You guys can ride your bikes to the school fields—that’s what they’re there for,” he recalled them saying.

Now, seeing the beautiful new field in what was once his back yard, “the 10-year-old in me says ‘whoah, this is totally awesome—this is a dream come true!’ I hope you find it as special for you as it was for me growing up,” Wang said. He then “broke in” the field by kicking a soccer ball into one of the goals, and the ball was later signed by guests at the ribbon-cutting for him to take home as a souvenir.