Last week, I was looking at the work done to improve our football field at Zollner. The re-crowning, re-seeding and watering have gone well, and the field will be an improvement over the last few years. Even our practice field is holding up well. The torrential downpours over the weekend were not damaging, but now we need some sun mixed with gentle rain so that by August 10, we are ready for our first football scrimmage and the start of our 55th year of sports at Zollner.
Why would I think about Zollner? Well, 53 years ago, I joined the freshmen football team and began playing tackle football for the first time in my life. At Emmanuel-St. Michael, we had flag football and it could get more physical, but it was still flag with a minimum of protective gear. Those first days in early August of 1965 were a bit of a shock especially the two-a-day practices. But it was the start of a four-year experience that even today, I get that feeling that practice starts soon.
I also recalled my first Jamboree, walking around the track in a new pair of cord pants with my girlfriend and other freshmen Cadets, seeing what it would be like when we got to play in the Jamboree. The huge crowds in the old Zollner were in the thousands and the 10-minute halves for each game were just long enough for the players to get ready… and we got a look at every high school team in the area. What a night of fun and cheering — on the Cadet home field!
Soon that cheering will be heard again. Our first home game is August 24, and even though our students would have been in class since August 15, that first football game is really the start of another year for all Cadets, in all sports and of course, for our academic work.
Memories are usually good things. And high school memories seem to have a greater emotional tie to my past.
I hope the new memories we are creating at CLHS this year are great memories. I’m glad I did go to CLHS, and I am glad for my education and my experiences. And even more important, that the sense of family — and our Christian faith being lived out — is a central theme to those memories.
Well, I don’t know if I could do one wind sprint with or without full gear but I am ready for football!
John Schoedel,
Chief Development Officer