MORGANTOWN — The little kid gazed up, wide-eyed, when that group of Morgantown High School football players swaggered into the room.
Some of them, well, looked like football players: Big guys. Tall, muscular.
Heck, even the ones who didn’t towered over him.
They were all wearing their game day jerseys, and from the first tick, they were on that kid like a fumble during a kickoff.
They taunted, and they teased. No mercy. They showed blitz on every down.
And the kid?
Well … he loved it.
Every second of it.
He didn’t want them to leave.
“We didn’t want to go in there and ‘treat’ them in a different way just because they were in the hospital,” MHS senior Matteo Darmelio said.
“We wanted them to have fun. We wanted them to just be themselves.”
The religion of doing the right thing
On this Thanksgiving Day, consider the above behavior from this group blessed to reside on the upper tier of the social order in high school.
Earlier this fall, the group called on some patients at WVU Medicine Children’s.
That’s where they met the above wide-eyed kid.
They played air hockey, batted Nerf balls and called numbers during Bingo.
And nobody “let” anybody win.
They were all de facto big brothers for a day.
Some of their new teammates are facing medical challenges that can make four quarters of hard-fought football seem like a saunter down the main hallway to answer the homeroom bell.
They are all members of Athletes’ EDGE, a group based at Kingdom Evangelical Methodist Church, in Westover.
Daniel Strosnider, a Kingdom pastor, advises the group.
Advising, yes. Preaching, no.
Strosnider is a former star at MHS, where he still coaches under the Friday night lights.
He didn’t venture too far down Interstate 79 for his college ball.
Strosnider was a four-year starter for the Falcons of nearby Fairmont State University (linebacker, defensive back), where he also earned a master’s in business administration.
The whole ride, though, he kept getting a call from the sidelines.
“I was drawn to ministry, pastoring,” he said.
“You can’t ignore the call to it, if you get it.”
He still won’t call the Bible audible with Athletes’ EDGE, though, he said.
“I never push ‘religion’ on a kid,” he said.
“Instead, we’ll talk about life: Where they are, where they want to be.”
Moving brush, making kids laugh (both with a purpose)
Besides that visit to the hospital, Athletes’ EDGE participants got into the literal thick of it this term.
They did that last month at Chestnut Mountain Ranch, the complex near Morgantown where troubled kids go to regain their moorings.
There, the guys who look like football players muscled in, working at a spot with natural wildness that is the future home to a chapel.
The work was hard, but, like two-a-days in August, it carried its payoff.
“It felt good,” said Quin Thompson, an MHS junior who just might be a chef someday.
“I could picture in my head what they’re going to do.”
Aaron Alvarez, his senior teammate, agreed.
“You’re out there helping,” he said.
“You’re making a kid laugh or moving brush. People feel good, and you appreciate what you have.”
Blessings, one and all.
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JBissett@DominionPost.com
