The band was there. The cheerleaders were
there. The Farmington Tigers mascot was there. The entire student body filled
the bleachers at Tiger Stadium near the end of the school day on Tuesday. Everybody
smiled. Everybody had a great time.
The event was a first for Farmington:
Victory Day. It’s an opportunity for cognitively and physically impaired children to play football or cheer
and have their moment in the sun. It was spectacular.
The Victory Day
All-Stars -- as they were introduced, running between two lines of cheerleaders
and varsity football players – threw footballs into a target net, they kicked
field goals, they played running back and took handoffs at the 40-yard line
before running downfield, evading a whole bunch of poor tacklers and dashing
into the end zone as the announcer screamed, the fans cheered and the band
played the school song.
Jon Pieper, who is Farmington’s co-head
football coach along with Rick Sutton, learned about Victory Day from Grand Rapids
coach Greg Spahn; they were college teammates at Wisconsin-River Falls. Victory
Day was created by a high school coach in Michigan and Spahn has made it an
annual event in Grand Rapids.
“Greg spoke
at a clinic and talked about doing this,” Pieper said. “I talked to our administration
here and they wanted to give it a shot.”
Among those
administrators is superintendent Jason Berg, a longtime MSHSL and NCAA football
official who put on his uniform and signaled every touchdown with tremendous
enthusiasm.
Students
were allowed to leave their classes early and walk to the stadium. The front of
the bleachers were adorned with signs carrying the names of all the Victory Day
All-Stars. Those kids ran and kicked and threw, high-fived and hugged each
other and the varsity players and had more fun than you can imagine.
As the event
drew to a close, Pieper gathered the All-Stars around him. He told the kids
that he wanted them to be a part of the football team. He wanted them to come
to games and be on the sideline with the Tigers.
“We want to practice
inclusive things and kind of demonstrate what that looks like to our players,”
Pieper said. “They did a fantastic job to make everybody out here feel welcome,
which is what we talk about all the time. This was one of those things that I
think is kind of putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to that
type of thing.”
Afterwards,
a parent approached Pieper to thank him. She also had a question: Could her child
really become part of the team?
Pieper’s
reply came immediately: “Heck yeah!”
--See
more photos and video from Farmington’s Victory Day on the MSHSL Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/mshsl.org?ref=bookmarks
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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