Sports

Clark Giants Fan Boasts Ultimate Lawn Display

Rich Martucci's lawn has been turned into a giant Giants football field.

When it comes to showing support for your team, Rich Martucci has every other home on the block – and in town – beat by 100 yards.

Two friends of Martucci's, Kean University art student Jenn Hockenberry and her mother Kathy Lloyd, surprised him with a giant Giants football field painted on his front lawn on Thursday, his birthday.

“I got the idea from a coworker of mine who had the New York Giants logo on his lawn," says Martucci. "I asked if she could just do 'Go Giants.'"

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But Martucci had no idea that his friends planned to take things up a notch. "I came home to this little mini football field here with goal posts," he says.

Martucci says the duo worked from 8 a.m. to noon in freezing temperatures and went through two cases of red and a half a case of blue and white mark-out utility paint. The display is complete with PVC pipe goal posts spray-painted yellow and stenciled Giants logos in the endzones.

Find out what's happening in Clark-Garwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Martucci says the traffic down his block has increased and his home is getting lots of honking and thumbs up from passersby.

To prepare for today's snow, Martucci and a friend went to Home Depot at 10 p.m. last night to buy two giant tarps to cover the display.

Martucci's three kids may be the most popular in school these past few days, but dad says there's no way he's letting them take to the picture-perfect field for a game. "They are getting a lot of kudos," says Martucci.

As for his hopes for Sunday, Martucci says he doesn't like to make predictions about his own team, but if they do win, as a season-ticket holder he's got his fingers crossed he gets picked in the Super Bowl ticket lottery.

"They better win," he says, "otherwise I'm going to need a lot of green paint!"


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