All kidding aside, it was the real “town and gown” event.
Before we ring your doorbell for Halloween, let’s revisit Friday’s world-record football toss attempt.
It involved all Ada school classes from 2019 to 2032, more ONU students and faculty than you could count, just about every village official you could name plus a supporting community cast who wouldn’t have missed it for the world-record setting event it was billed to be.
To help set the stage, imagine bussing nearly 1,000 Ada students from the school to the football stadium. That started at 11:30 a.m., with kick off – in this case, pass off – slated for 2 p.m.
Aside from bussing those students, which was a world-record event in itself, imagine fretting about rain, which never arrived.
Prior to the official toss there were practice tosses and lots of camaraderie on the field, as you can imagine.
The Icon took advantage of the lull before the toss by visited with several groups of Ada school students and Ohio Northern University students. We share these additional photos and a walk-by video with a neat ending – make certain you watch the entire view.
The video stars Ada eighth graders Ella Marshall, Ashlyn Madison, Mariah King and Olivia Burkhart. The four-some had created a football cross-toss that was pretty interesting, as you will see. And, they are natural actors.
The Icon also played defense against the four members of the ONU football team, including Dave Haseleu from Pittsburgh, Tyler Smith of Cincinnati, Drew Staczek of Toledo and Tyler Soltis of Cleveland.
We chatted with Ethan Murphy, Ada freshman, and member of the varsity football team. He thought the event was “kind of cool,” as did we.
Dan Lee, part Bulldog and part Polar Bear, who meanwhile serves as principal of Ada High School, masterminded the event. The Icon failed to photograph him, due to his assignment as logistics coordinator from the press box.
But his presence was felt, actually, heard over the PA system. His parting words were something like this: “If tossing 1,000 footballs was on your bucket list, you may now cross it off the list.”
As everyone filed out of the stadium when the balls finally landed there was little doubt: this was the real town and gown event.
