The Activities Office organized its second ever Signing Day for graduating seniors being accepted to colleges to play sports on April 26. At the event, students were acknowledged by school faculty and coaches for committing to play at their respective schools.
“I had been talking to a couple of schools that I liked academically but Delaware was beautiful and close to home and the head field hockey coach was really friendly and they asked me to play for them in November,” said senior Maddie O’Beirne, a center midfielder who signed to play field hockey.
Principal Jay Pearson, director of student activities Joe Swarm and the players’ coaches gave short speeches to the athletes and their parents.
Last year was the first time Marshall hosted a Signing Day for graduating athletes, but only three students attended it compared to this year’s ten.
“This was without question a good year, but it does vary from year to year,” Swarm said. “We didn’t do as big of an event last year because it was tougher to pull people together and we may have had more overall if we had done it at the end of the year like we did this year and collected all the seasons.”
In the past, graduating athletes have been recognized and congratulated individually after committing to a college.
Due to the lack of ceremonies in previous years, not all student athletes were recognized for being signed to college teams. Signing Day made it easier to keep track of how many students are graduating to play college sports and provided a more comfortable environment for students.
Swarm said they “were pleasantly surprised that after the ceremony everyone kind of lingered around, ate cake and enjoyed each others company.”