UPDATED: 2011 Orrville Football Captains Named & Red Rider Stadium News

Two items of note for your Mother's Day weekend, and both revolve around football.  I know it's still spring sports season, but we're right around 100 days away from the kickoff of the 2011 football season....so it's  good a time as any.

Captains
Congratulations to four seniors-to-be on being named captains for the upcoming season.  They are Drew Brenner, Mason Monheim, Matt Davis & Trevor White.  All four will likely be two-way players with Mason & Matt both playing linebacker and running back, Drew playing wide receiver and defensive back and Trevor seeing time on both the offensive and defensive line.

Mason joins an exclusive club of father/son captains as well as one of three sibling captains.  His father John was a captain in 1978 and his twin brothers Vincent & Victor were captains in 2009.  I wont attempt to list all of the father/son captains & sibling captains, but anyone browsing the list I compiled last year can pick them out. 


UPDATED 5/9/11: A quick review of the captains list shows only one other family that had 3 siblings all be captains, and that was the Demlow brothers (Paul, Ernie and Don) back in the late 30's and early 40's. If that's incorrect, someone please let me know.

I don't mean to single out those two families, but it's pretty neat to see three siblings all be named captains. Plenty of other families have left their mark throughout the history of the Orrville football captaincy...like the Bowman's, the Yonto's, the Reusser's, the Haley's, the McDonald's, the Tipton's & the Handwerk's just to name a few.

Not to beat a dead horse...but don't tell me tradition doesn't matter.

Congrats to all four of the 2011 captains.

Red Rider Stadium
Some notes from recent Booster Club meeting minutes point to some upcoming improvements to Red Rider Stadium.  First up is the replacement of the light poles.  The lights themselves are just a few years old, but the poles are deteriorating and will be replaced with new metal poles this summer.  It's a small thing, but I think it will give the stadium a fresh look.

The second item is the potential of adding a bleacher wrap to the back of the home side bleachers.  I mentioned this last football season after seeing Northwest's bleacher wrap at their stadium.  Here's their website and a gallery of local stadiums that have this.  Kent State University sponsored the installation of Bleacher Jeryeys at 7 Stark County schools..so most local examples are only possible through sponsor donations.  I'm told by AD Kent Smith that a sponsor for this project has yet to be secured, so installation will not happen this summer unless a sponsor is found.  What a great sponsorship opportunity for a local business this would be.

If and when a sponsor is found, the keyword is SIMPLE.  Nothing over-the-top.  Just simple designs and colors.  Maybe just a horizontal version of our helmet stripe, school name and nickname and maybe the Red Rider logo.  Done.  What a great centerpiece that would be to our soon-to-be completed central campus.
 
That's all for now.