This past Saturday was the Iowa Ladies Football Academy….and my wife, Jennifer, and Mal the Sports Gal got to experience the ultimate dream…of being a Hawkeye for a day.
It was another incredible day…filled with football, behind-the-scenes tours, meetings with the coaches, and up-close practices with the players.
It’s an absolutely once-in-lifetime experience…one that will provide a lifetime of memories…make your husband jealous…and it’s all for an amazing cause. 100% of the money raised goes to the Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
This year, the Iowa Ladies Football Academy raised over $233,000!!!
It’s a Win-Win-Win…Win.
The kids and I dropped Jennifer off to meet Mal at the front gate of Kinnick…and that’s as far as we get…Jennifer and Mal head on into Kinnick…and I know that for the next 5-6 hours, the kids’ & I trip to the Childrens’ Museum will be filled with text selfies 🙂
That was pretty cool…and I’m glad they were able to fit my name in there, ha! But then, a few minutes later, I got this one…and my jaw dropped…
I was so proud of my wife…she was on a mission…she had a gameplan…she knew she needed a selfie/video with Matt VandeBerg. The guy is a stud…and congrats on the wedding!
It was shortly after that text that I got a call saying “Well, I just did something that was pretty darn awesome”…and this…
It was an amazing catch…an incredible celebration…and then I saw #25 walk in frame…and was like “You just caught a TD from Akrum Wadley? That…is…awesome!!! Nice job sweetheart”.
Akrum Wadley…Matt VandeBerg…Mark Weisman….and the pics just kept coming…
Jennifer was telling me that Bo Bower (#41, lower left) is just plain fantastic, and a super-sweet guy. #11 (in the lower right)…that’s Ryan Boyle…you might remember Ryan Boyle from his incredible days at Dowling…which led to Mal the Sports Gal’s crush on him…which led to, I think it was….7…yeah, 7 straight Fridays where, in one way or another, she’d manage to mention Ryan Boyle….well, she got her pic Saturday afternoon as well!
And it only seems fitting with all the love she’s thrown Coach over all the years…that she finally got this photo too!
(She might frame that one)
The text from my wife that I wasn’t expecting was “Guess who tried on two Super Bowl rings today?”
Umm…awesome. Have I used this word too much in this blog? It’s true though…the whole Saturday is awesome.
When it was all said and done early Saturday evening, the kids and I picked up Jennifer, and she just couldn’t say enough positive things about the whole day. From how nice the players and coaches were…to Mary Ferentz giving her a big hug…to all these fantastic ladies coming together…getting out there, tackling dummies, catching TD passes, learning plays…absolutely tremendous.
As Mal the Sports Gal summed it up that evening ” You know, I’ve been a Hawkeye fan forever…but after seeing how nice and incredible the players are, and how much passion they have for this, it just really cements that I made a great decision all those years ago”.
Our Saturdays in June are already blocked off for next year. Get all the details here!
Thank you to Mary Ferentz…the Iowa Hawkeyes…and all the incredible ladies that partook in Saturday’s fun!
