FHS hits home run with ‘Friends on the Field’ event
After all, such notoriety comes naturally with 15 state titles.
But on Wednesday, Sept. 30, several of those same state champions and their classmates cheered on students who got a taste of that glory for themselves.
From 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. during the school’s second block, Farragut senior athletes, Leadership 3 students and peer tutors watched as 30 of the school’s special-needs students took the field as part of the second annual “Friends on the Field” program.
The event is an extension of the school’s “Anchors for Hope” basketball event, where the FHS basketball teams cheer on special-needs students at Farragut in a smaller version of the Tennessee-affiliated “Hoops for Hope” event that takes place each August.
“We took the idea from Hoops for Hope and started Anchors for Hope, so this will be the third year of that,” FHS leadership teacher Abbey Ellis said. “But they wanted to do something other than basketball, too, and they started this.”
“They” refers to Ellis’ Leadership 3 students, all of whom are Farragut seniors who are nominated for the class by staff members.
“We have an all-junior class that’s Leadership 2, and that’s when they learn self-leadership, knowing who they are as leaders, and Ben Collins teaches that,” Ellis said.
“Then with Leadership 3, it’s all seniors. The biggest difference between 2 and 3 is that 3 is about teamwork leadership. Because every single person in the class is a leader, but are you following, leading or who’s got the best idea? We learn how to work as a team to accomplish whatever we want to accomplish.”
The on-field event certainly was an example of that, as students worked together throughout the process.
Ellis noted that last year’s event included a football station, a soccer station and a baseball station, “but we realized that was too much,” she said. “So we kept it just to wiffle ball this year.
“And since we had the basketball teams involved for Anchors for Hope, we wanted the softball and baseball teams out here,” she added. “It’s seniors only just for numbers’ sake, but we might open it to the whole team next year if we get more kids.”
Smaller numbers or not, the smiles told the story of the event from start to finish.
“One of the things that makes Farragut so special, especially the high school, is the community we build with the special needs program,” Ellis added. “A lot of our kids do take peer tutoring. They’re involved with those kids in tutoring them, including them at lunch and events we do, so this is something we do that’s really special.”
“We’re helping students who don’t really get to play sports outside, so we give them a chance to come out with the support of friends and peers to make a cool atmosphere,” senior Kambree Fontenot added.
“We get the special needs students involved more in the student body, and they love it,” softball standout Taylor Albright said. “I love seeing them happy.”
“We all love this game,” senior baseball player Caleb Van Lant offered in summary, “so it’s fun to see them have as much fun as we do.”
