(PHOTO BY TIMOTHY KAYS, STAFF)
Story originally appeared-May 16th, 2018
By: Timothy Kays
If you noticed that the north parking lot of the Stryker School was particularly jammed up on the late afternoon of May 12, you should have seen how packed the Multipurpose Room was inside the building. The community was coming out en masse for a fundraiser in support of the Stryker Panther Football and Cheerleader Programs, which is about to fully venture into the varsity world for the first time in over 80 years.
Sponsored by the Stryker Athletic Boosters, the event proved once and for all that not only has the community welcomed the football program into their school district, they have taken it to heart as a part of the family.
Over 200 admission tickets were sold at $15 apiece for the event, that almost ran aground before the opening kickoff. It’s not easy to fulfill the needs of providing a spaghetti dinner with all the fixings when the caterer backs out.
Coach Justin Sonnenberg turned to his bench to get the job done, and on the evening before Mother’s Day, Coach Sonnenberg’s mother stepped into the huddle. What she brought was more than what the original bill of fare was calling for. Not only was there the originally advertised spaghetti, but she came with an A-game that included lasagna AND gluten-free penne with sauce.
When all of the sides and the desserts provided by the parents were added into the mix, the event went from a spaghetti dinner to a real festa Italiana. There was nary a discouraging word to be heard from anyone in the packed Multipurpose Room, but there were several comments of, “I ate too much.”
The special guest speaker for the evening, 2011 Patrick Henry graduate Kasey Spence, brought a message to the team stressing the priorities of positivity. He admitted that he went through his high school athletic career by simply ‘going through the motions’, but also added that in doing so, he was doing it all wrong.
Being diagnosed with a brain tumor after graduation, and having to deal with the subsequent surgeries and recouperative therapies, he learned that ‘going through the motions’ is the last thing that he should be doing, and he emphatically stressed to the team that they should avoid the same shortcomings that he made.
Donated items were raffled off, while others were scheduled for live auction. It was there that another potentially event-hindering snafu came to the fore, as the services of an auctioneer could not be secured. The Plan-B option was put into play, and Noah Huffman was pressed into the position of auctioneer.
With Amos Sloan calling the bids at his side, Huffman, with the help of a few pleadings and bid enhancing ‘bribes’, turned in a successful, and often hilarious performance. “I knew how hard this job would be as a coach, and it was a risk coming over and taking a job where you’re starting up a program from scratch,” Coach Sonnenberg said.
“But if this wasn’t such a great community, I don’t think that I would have taken the job to begin with. I knew that Stryker was a great place, and the whole time that I’ve been here, they’ve done nothing but prove that over and over again. They’ve shown up in force tonight, and have done an amazing job supporting their student athletes. We really, REALLY appreciate it!”
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
