I have been told, and have told others, that you never know just who is going to read your stories.
We got another graphic example of that on Monday here at The Evening Sun.
In the wake of last Friday’s column by Jim Litke of The Associated Press regarding a high school football game in Ohio, Hanover area resident Jen Hagerman said the story is a local one.
Litke detailed the story of Logan Thompson, a freshman football player at St. Clairesville, Ohio, who was inserted into his team’s varsity game to score a touchdown two days after the sudden death of his father, Paul.
It turns out Thompson is the great grandson of Hagerman, but she missed the game to stay with her granddaughter and Logan’s mother, Daniele, in the wake of Paul’s death two days earlier.
To backtrack, Hagerman said Daniele left her Irishtown home at age 21 after she attended school here. She then married one year later.
Danielle’s father was Andrew Poist, who was a football teammate of current New York Giants offensive line coach Pat Flaherty at Delone Catholic.
In an odd twist, Andrew Poist died from cancer at age 33, a fate which Daniele has now suffered twice with the passing her own husband at a similarly young age.
However, Hagerman said her grief has been soothed in part by the gesture of St. Clairesville head coach Brett McLean, whose game plan included the insertion of Thompson into the backfield to rush for a touchdown in the Oct. 5 game against Richmond Edison.
That coach’s move was the focus of Litke’s column, but the story has gone far beyond that. Hagerman said Daniele has been dealing with many calls from the media, a task which Hagerman said has soothed her granddaughter’s grief in part.
We add our sympathies to the family here and applaud the example set by McLean and a resilient family with Hanover connections.
