Get your red-hot East-West tickets

Published 12:12 pm Wednesday, June 24, 2009

EVERETT

On the field, they run, catch, block and tackle. Off the field, they were salesmen.

All 61 athletes participating in Saturday’s East-West All-Star Football Game took an active role in making sure the event would happen. As in past years, every player received 100 game tickets and was asked to sell as many as possible. They also tried to sell ads to local businesses for the game program.

“We encourage them to sell (tickets),” East-West Game coordinator Paul Lawrence said, “because that’s how we fund our game.”

In addition to receiving financial support from longtime sponsors like Dwayne Lane’s Family of Auto Centers, Lawrence relies on players – many of Washington’s top Class of 2009 high school gridiron stars – to raise money and pay for expenses.

“Some kids will sell all the tickets and some will sell a few,” Lawrence said. “We don’t say, ‘Hey, you have to sell these.’ We just say, ‘You’re encouraged to do this because other players before you have done the same thing.’”

Players who sold lots of tickets and ads earn prizes, such as East-West-themed T-shirts, shorts, hats, sweatshirts and travel bags.

West team linebacker/receiver A.J. Carroll, a Meadowdale High product, sold all 100 of his tickets. “I have a huge family so I sold to all my family, and my girlfriend’s family,” Carroll said. He also got help from his mom, who used her PTA connections to sell East-West tickets at Beverly Elementary School in Lynnwood, Carroll said.

Helping fund the game “feels good,” said Carroll. “It brings everyone together.”

West team lineman Jerod Baker, representing Arlington High, sold 48 tickets and a few ads. It definitely helps having the game at a nearby venue. “If the game was in Spokane, I would have sold half (as many) tickets,” Baker said.

Not surprisingly, considering the tough economic times, players didn’t sell as many ads for the game program as usual, said Lawrence, the game coordinator. Despite what Lawrence called “a big drop-off” in ads, he said East-West Game organizers will be able to cover all expenses.

Bragging rights

This past fall, Jerod Baker and Taylor Cox were rivals. Baker’s Arlington team edged Cox’s Jackson squad 28-22 in overtime in an action-packed non-league clash. But this week the players are both on the West All-Star team. Baker plans to remind his new teammate Cox about Arlington’s victory over Jackson. “I’ll probably bring it up once or twice this week,” said Baker, grinning.

Finally a part of East-West week

Tom Myhre was once a standout football player at R.A. Long High in Longview. The linebacker/offensive lineman was picked to be an alternate for the 1985 East-West Game but did not participate. Now, 24 years later, Myhre is making his East-West debut. The longtime Mariner High assistant is on the West team coaching staff, working with wide receivers and inside linebackers. “I feel like I’m a better coach than I was a player,” he said. “I feel like I’ve come full circle.”

East team will spread it out

The East team will use a spread offense. East offensive coordinator Jim Sharkey, the head coach at Ferris High in Spokane, said the East squad will use three quarterbacks on Saturday: Bellarmine Prep’s Luke Schindele, Central Valley’s Blake Bledsoe and North Kitsap’s Kevin Stringer. The QBs have two huge targets to throw to on the outside: 6-foot-6 Clayton Homme of Southridge and 6-5 Guy Varsek of Camas. The main slot receiver will be Aaron Roberts, who Sharkey coached at Ferris.

Mike Cane writes for The Herald in Everett.