Hail the size of golf balls is one thing. Actual golf balls raining from the sky is something else.
That’s what Doug Musselman was watching one day this spring. He wasn’t concerned, though — far from it.
The golf balls, dropped from a helicopter, highlighted a spring fair, one of Cedar Cliff High School’s most successful fundraisers to help send its football team to Dublin, Ireland, to play Penn Manor in the Global International Football Tournament.
“It was a neat fundraiser,” said Musselman, whose son is an offensive lineman at Cedar Cliff. “I’ve never seen a couple thousand golf balls come tumbling out of a helicopter onto a football field.”
It was a unique event that helped provide what will be a unique experience for players. It also was part of a long, thought-out and community-driven effort to pay the schools’ way to the game, which will be played Aug. 29, the day before Penn State and Central Florida meet in the Croke Park Classic.
“It’s a lot of money toward what some people might call a frivolous trip,” said Sherri Breneman, mother of Adam and Grant, who play for Penn State and Cedar Cliff, respectively. “But we didn’t see it that way.”
Melissa Swarr, a 1990 Penn Manor graduate with a son, lineman Colby Doman, who plays for her alma mater, noted that many of the players making the trip may not have had the opportunity to travel abroad otherwise.
“Going abroad and going to Europe, it’s not just playing a football game,” she said. “It’s experiencing the world as a bigger part of what you’re around in your radius of your school district every day. … I think in general, parents always want our kids to have experiences we couldn't have, or we wish we could have had.”
The schools found out about the opportunity to play in the GIFT midway through the 2013 season. After surveys indicated interest, both school boards approved the undertaking.
“At first I didn’t believe it,” said Jordan Stiles, a linebacker for Cedar Cliff. “I was excited and I was hoping it was true. And then once I actually found out it was true, it was just a sense of happiness and excitedness.”
Once the school boards approved the trips, the booster clubs had to figure out how to pay for them.
Musselman, who helped with Cedar Cliff’s Ireland-specific booster group, said the cost for each player was initially $3,450. But after seeking corporate donations, the overall cost of the trip was cut about in half, he said, and each player had to foot only a $1,500 bill.
Penn Manor had a similar cost, at $3,445 per player.
Both schools raised money by selling Christmas trees, raffling off a PlayStation 4 and selling sandwiches (subs for Cedar Cliff, chicken BBQ for Penn Manor.)
Cedar Cliff also sold Otis Spunkmeyer cookie dough. Every little bit helped; Stiles’ father, Dale, said his son raised about $570 through cookie dough sales. The school invited its opponent to participate in both a raffle for a trip for two to Ireland and the golf-ball drop, in which a helicopter released golf balls purchased at $10 apiece onto the field, and the closest to five markers won prizes, the most valuable $2,000.
Penn Manor sought corporate donations, too, and family members and friends were sent letters explaining the opportunity and asking for donations. There was at least one fundraiser every month, Swarr said.
There were events that went to an overall team account as well, which Manor Pride Gridiron Club Vice President Kim Braun said in an email was divided evenly among players before the final deposit was due. One such event was a “Pot of Gold” dinner in March featuring cash prizes.
“I honestly have to say, it felt very overwhelming at the beginning,” Swarr said. “But coach [Todd Mealy] really rallied, and everything came together in the end, so all the players that intended to go are going.”
Cedar Cliff now plans to send all 42 players, eight coaches, a team doctor and a trainer to Ireland.
Swarr noted the “true team spirit” shown by Penn Manor players who reached their goals early. Those players continued to fundraise, with the extra funds going to other players who still needed money.
While Cedar Cliff coach Colin Gillen pointed out that his team is approaching the journey “like it’s a business trip,” much like a college football team traveling to a bowl game, he added that it is planning to have fun and embrace the experience.
Dale Stiles also said that the first order of business is winning a football game. But that’s not the only goal.
“The second one is to get a life-changing experience out of this trip, to see a new culture, a whole new country, because I would’ve never thought of going out of the country,” he said. “This is going to be an experience for myself, also. But for Jordan, it's just something that he might not have gotten to experience had it not been for GIFT for inviting us.”
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Eric Shultz is a student in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
The Penn State student team from the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism will be covering the Croke Park Classic from Ireland. The team of eight students in print, photos and multimedia, guided by a three-person faculty team of experienced journalists, will arrive in Dublin on Saturday, Aug. 23 and will be your eyes and ears in the Emerald Isle.