In high school sports and activities, the best stories often have nothing
to do with the final score. A perfect example of this is the No. 6 story on the
list of my favorites from 2021-22, from a very special event at Farmington High
School.
Here’s the story, originally posted on Oct. 6 …
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!”
--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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