clenz
May 17th, 2016, 07:45 AM
With all of the suspensions, arrests, dismissals, deaths, etc... we've had come out lately it was refreshing to see a story like this get picked up by a newspaper. I've followed it on twitter for a while but it finally got "real" publicity so I thought I'd share UNI players taking charge and doing something to improve the community
http://qctimes.com/sports/columnists/doxsie/ex-alleman-star-making-impact-off-the-field-at-uni/article_3bd9c0f8-5bf1-5836-ba91-5448d4de37a0.html
Paul Huting said that in all his decades as the leisure services director for the city of Waterloo he can’t recall anything like this happening.
That’s because in the me-first world college athletics, this stuff just doesn’t happen very often.
Waterloo had planned to build a nice, new playground in Highland Park in the northeast part of the city only to have the federal funding for the project eliminated. As they say in the municipal sector, the project got "zeroed out."
But the playground is going to get built anyway.
A bunch of football players from the University of Northern Iowa, led by a former Rock Island Alleman star, are building it for them.
The players aren’t being paid. In fact, they’re raising money for the project as well as providing all of the labor. They’re not getting any classroom credit.
They’re doing it because … well, it just sort of seemed like a good idea.
"It is something that we all really wanted to do," said Jacob Appleman, who was an all-state player at Alleman in 2013 and started two games at right guard for UNI last fall. "It is about doing something bigger than all of us. We wanted to be more than just football players. We are a group of guys that when we put our minds together, we can accomplish anything."
Appleman is the leader of 13 sophomores on the UNI team who are undertaking the project.
It’s an idea that began with Jed Smith, UNI’s strength and conditioning coach, who encourages players to do class projects.
"Jed is always talking about how to go from a good team to a great team, and that is all about investing in more than just yourself," Appleman said. "We need to be leaders and one way to be a leader is going beyond football and doing more than what we were brought here to do."
Smith put the players in touch with Huting’s department and it took off from there, even before the $40,000 federal grant for the playground fell through.
The UNI players were in attendance at the city council meeting when the funding cut was being discussed. Appleman got up before the council and explained what he and his teammates wanted to do.
He must have been pretty convincing.
"They (the players) basically came to the rescue of the project …" Huting said. "After that, the council changed the appropriation and gave $20,000 to the project. The UNI players are providing about $10,000 of in-kind labor and they’re fundraising for the rest."
He said the players already are tackling the fundraising part of the job. He’s amazed at how all of them, especially Appleman, have taken "ownership" over the project.
"This wouldn’t have happened otherwise," he added.
The players plan to spend the summer doing everything they can to get at least $5,000 in donations, hopefully more. The actual work of building the playground will take place next fall or the following spring. Huting said the city will work around the players’ schedules to make it happen.
He said the playground equipment, which will be fully ADA compliant, probably will have some sort of UNI theme and colors so that the community will remember how it got there.
"You see some colleges go to hospitals and read books to local schools, which is great and a really good idea, but we wanted to do something more permanent for the Cedar Valley,” Appleman said.
“We talked about how cool it would be to build a park because when we graduate and come back for class reunions or to watch games, we could take our own kids to the park.”
http://qctimes.com/sports/columnists/doxsie/ex-alleman-star-making-impact-off-the-field-at-uni/article_3bd9c0f8-5bf1-5836-ba91-5448d4de37a0.html
Paul Huting said that in all his decades as the leisure services director for the city of Waterloo he can’t recall anything like this happening.
That’s because in the me-first world college athletics, this stuff just doesn’t happen very often.
Waterloo had planned to build a nice, new playground in Highland Park in the northeast part of the city only to have the federal funding for the project eliminated. As they say in the municipal sector, the project got "zeroed out."
But the playground is going to get built anyway.
A bunch of football players from the University of Northern Iowa, led by a former Rock Island Alleman star, are building it for them.
The players aren’t being paid. In fact, they’re raising money for the project as well as providing all of the labor. They’re not getting any classroom credit.
They’re doing it because … well, it just sort of seemed like a good idea.
"It is something that we all really wanted to do," said Jacob Appleman, who was an all-state player at Alleman in 2013 and started two games at right guard for UNI last fall. "It is about doing something bigger than all of us. We wanted to be more than just football players. We are a group of guys that when we put our minds together, we can accomplish anything."
Appleman is the leader of 13 sophomores on the UNI team who are undertaking the project.
It’s an idea that began with Jed Smith, UNI’s strength and conditioning coach, who encourages players to do class projects.
"Jed is always talking about how to go from a good team to a great team, and that is all about investing in more than just yourself," Appleman said. "We need to be leaders and one way to be a leader is going beyond football and doing more than what we were brought here to do."
Smith put the players in touch with Huting’s department and it took off from there, even before the $40,000 federal grant for the playground fell through.
The UNI players were in attendance at the city council meeting when the funding cut was being discussed. Appleman got up before the council and explained what he and his teammates wanted to do.
He must have been pretty convincing.
"They (the players) basically came to the rescue of the project …" Huting said. "After that, the council changed the appropriation and gave $20,000 to the project. The UNI players are providing about $10,000 of in-kind labor and they’re fundraising for the rest."
He said the players already are tackling the fundraising part of the job. He’s amazed at how all of them, especially Appleman, have taken "ownership" over the project.
"This wouldn’t have happened otherwise," he added.
The players plan to spend the summer doing everything they can to get at least $5,000 in donations, hopefully more. The actual work of building the playground will take place next fall or the following spring. Huting said the city will work around the players’ schedules to make it happen.
He said the playground equipment, which will be fully ADA compliant, probably will have some sort of UNI theme and colors so that the community will remember how it got there.
"You see some colleges go to hospitals and read books to local schools, which is great and a really good idea, but we wanted to do something more permanent for the Cedar Valley,” Appleman said.
“We talked about how cool it would be to build a park because when we graduate and come back for class reunions or to watch games, we could take our own kids to the park.”