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Football team has the 'write' stuff
Release Date:
May 15, 2009
MONMOUTH, Ill. —
Fans don’t often
imagine football players and kindergarteners working together, but
that’s exactly what happened when the Monmouth College football team
began a pen pal program with a group of area kindergarten students.
The idea was the
brainchild of 6-foot-1, 270-pound offensive lineman Seth Hill
of Jacksonville, Ill., a junior elementary education major who had
finished his pr acticum
aiding assignments and was looking for a way to stay involved with
the students at United North Elementary School in nearby Alexis. He
had assisted in Carl Young’s kindergarten class and decided to
enlist his football buddies in an effort to inspire the young
students to practice their writing skills each week.
“I thought I’d
have to twist some arms to get the guys to help,” said Hill of his
plea to write to nearly 20 five-year-olds. “I had over 30 players
sign up from offensive linemen to defensive backs and everyone in
between and from all sorts of majors. I had to make some cuts to get
it down to about 20 guys. We still had more players on standby to
help if we needed.”
The Fighting Scots
spent every Tuesday evening from mid-January to May writing letters
to their kindergarten pen pals. Some of the Scots even included
artwork.
“(Offensive
lineman) Nick Hoffman is pretty artistic and he included a
sketch in his letters,” reported Hill. “The kids at United then
started coloring pictures in the letters they sent to the players.
Nick’s pen pal said he wasn’t going to continue writing if Nick
didn’t start coloring his sketches, so I brought some markers and we
all started to include some colorings with the letters. It was
relaxing – a good stress reliever.”
Hill
hand-delivered the letters each Wednesday to the kindergarten class
who anxiously awaited the mail delivery. Like his postal service
counterparts, Hill never missed a delivery – except for Spring
Break.
“That must have
seemed like an eternity to them,” said Hill. “I walked into the
classroom after break and they all wondered where their mail was.
They missed not having any letters for two weeks. Every week was
like ‘The Price is Right’ when I called their name for a letter.
They really got excited about it.”
Young agrees with
Hill and believes the football team inspired his students to reach
new levels of learning.
“The program was a
huge success,” claimed Young. “The pen pal program actually had the
students looking forward to writing in class every day. Some
students who had been struggling with their writing skills stepped
it up and did quite well. I was overwhelmed at how well the players
bonded with the class.”
The kindergartners
weren’t the only ones to reap the benefits of the program.
“Just the sheer fun
of seeing what the kids wrote was worth it,” said Hill who hopes the
program will continue in future years. “It’s a good way to show the
area that the football team cares about the surrounding area. We’re
not just here for four years and then we’re gone. We want to leave a
lasting impression, and not only on the football field. Everyone
should do what they can to help the surrounding area. Even if they
can only give 10-20 minutes a night to write letters to grade-school
students. If they’re positively influencing one child, then it’s
worth the effort.”
Hill’s philosophy
fits in perfectly with head coach Steve Bell’s commitment to
developing good citizens as well as good athletes.
“We try to teach our
players to have a positive presence in the community,” said Bell.
“By developing and nurturing those ideals now, we believe the
players will carry that philosophy with them throughout their
lifetime.”
Bell’s influence
apparently is taking hold on the Scots. As the culminating event of
the pen pal program, the players – along with Haase Embroidery, a
local specialty shirt shop – purchased T-shirts for each of the
team’s pen pals and delivered them in-person to the kindergarteners.
“When we delivered
the T-shirts, each player and student immediately bonded because of
the months of writing letters back and forth,” said Hill. “The class
was in awe of seeing all those football players in person. It made
the kindergartners feel really special that we would take the time
to come and see them. Some of the older students were a little
envious of that extra attention. We were able to eat lunch, take
recess and just sit and talk with them one-on-one before we had to
get back to campus.”
Who knows, maybe
someday one of those kindergarten students will themselves become a
Fighting Scot and carry on Hill’s pen pal program.
Football
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