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From My View For July 20

By Staff | Jul 20, 2016

With the 71st Rudy Mumley OVAC All-Star Game coming Saturday evening, I can picture loads of things that will happen during all the festivities. I can’t wait to see it unfold. However, there are festivities that I haven’t had the pleasure of attending but have heard a lot about.

The first day, the players from both the Ohio and West Virginia All-Stars meet each other and their coaching staff at Bethany College. Getting to know guys you faced in the trenches, that will now be your

teammates, will be something to remember. The trading of T-shirts, helmet stickers, and the war stories that will be exchanged will be something to be around.

The coaches, who may or may not have seen some of their new all-stars play, will meet for the first time and will need to figure out in a very short time where each player can help the team. After a few months of not playing football, the players must get ready to run, tackle and block again. Some might have put on a few pounds and will need to dig deep to get ready.

When all the band and cheerleading all-stars show up, it is about the same. I can picture all of them hugging one another and telling stories about their adventures they had during school and band camps. It will be a great experience to play music with different musicians and work on footwork for the different shows they will show us on the field at halftime.

With the band, both the Ohio and West Virginia kids will be on the same team now, but I’m sure they will be rooting inside when the game starts. The cheerleaders, like the players and the band members, will meet their teammates for the first time and share the things that cheerleaders share. The camaraderie of cheerleading is awesome. Not only do they have to be pleasant when they’re sad, they must learn different formations, dance routines and cheers.

The players, coaches, Queen of Queens candidates and all-star cheerleaders came together for the first time at the annual George Strager Evening With the Stars. Dinner is held at the White Palace at Wheeling Park.

This is a great experience for the kids in more ways than just football and making friendships with each other. Many don’t have no idea who George Strager or Rudy Mumley are, so it’s a great learning process for these guys to know how this whole week came to be. And that will only continue as days and nights go by.

There are activities for the kids each day, including an ice-cream social and a Queen of Queens pageant where 21 high school pageant winners will perform at the historic Capital Music Hall in downtown Wheeling.

The OVAC McDonald’s All-Star Band will first show off its routine at a pep rally on the Bethany College campus. The players, cheerleaders, queens and coaches will then attend a dance. The Osiris Shrine guys have a Film and Pizza Night at the Steinman Theater for all the kids at Bethany College too.

Besides all of this, there will be a reunion luncheon for the 1966 former all-stars. The tales, I’m sure, will be plentiful.

Then it will be time for the game. This year, the game will be played on Saturday, instead of Sunday, and its Pack The House Night on Wheeling Island Stadium.

The hard work that the OVAC Rudy Mumley All-Star Committee and staff will start to take form. To put an All-Star fun-filled week for the kids in the OVAC, and to even give scholarships to boot, my hat is off to the OVAC.

I know, I probably missed some of the festivities, but like I said these are the things that the OVAC does for our kids that I know have, but not had the pleasure of attend.

I hope and pray, that this year’s All-Star Classic goes on without a hitch, and people off all ages can go and watch a bunch of our area youths have the time of their lives and build friendships they would have ever had if there wasn’t an Rudy Mumley All-Star Classic.