PAUL KOONTZ, JR. | Football For those of you who don't know me or know of me, I'm the quarterback for our high school football team. I'm actually really excited I was asked about playing quarterback on Friday nights for The Station, because it's something I feel is a once-in-a-lifetime type thing that not many other people get to experience. Football in and of itself is a very emotional game where you make bonds that are sometimes stronger than the bonds you make at home with your family; your teammates are your family. They are your brothers, which makes playing quarterback that much more awesome. There is nothing else like throwing a ball to your brother and watching him take it to the house. But there is so much more that goes into playing quarterback than "see receiver, throw to receiver, score a touchdown." There is not a better feeling than when you get to celebrate a win with your brothers and the rest of the school, including the band and majorettes, who play a bigger part than most people think. ...your teammates are your family. First, I'd like to start by talking about pregame and warm-ups. This is by far the easiest part of the night, but during this time I talk with Mr. Mylant, or 'Coach Ox' as we know him, about the things we like going into the game. Once we get into warm-ups I just try to get as loose and ready to go as possible. Then, we hit game time. During the game, there are a lot of things I do that aren't seen very often, like talking to specific guys after a bad play to get them back into things or talking with Mr. Mylant again to see what he likes. Right before and during plays, I'm doing a lot of unseen things. I watch the film from our prior plays to see what plays look good and what kind of defense they run. Prior to the snap of the ball, I'm reading the opponents entire defense and visualizing what I think they are going to do during the play. During the play, I read what they do and make a decision in about three seconds all while defensive linemen are trying to sack me, but I don't worry about that too much because our offensive line is the best there is. But there is so much more that goes into playing quarterback than "see receiver, throw to receiver, score a touchdown. Regardless, it's a lot harder than it seems to be. I am basically the "coach on the field," if you will, when it comes to offense. If someone has a question about a play or something like that, they come to me, and I know the answer. It's a lot of mental work and understanding the offense as a whole. I need to know what almost every guy is doing, and make sure every guy is in the right place. I hope you learned something new about what it's truly like to play quarterback on Friday nights, and I just wanted to thank you for coming out and supporting us like you guys do every week. It means a lot. PAUL KOONTZ, JR. | Football
ALEXIS SCHEETZ / Alum originally published May 5, 2018 Hi, my name is Alexis and for those of you who don’t know me, you probably have no idea that I am fully blind in my right eye. A common misconception is that when you close your eyes, it’s like being blind, which is wrong. Anyone who can see cannot possibly imagine what it’s like not being able to. However, if you don’t see black then what do you see? Well, the answer is nothing. Surprising, I know. When I was born the doctors thought I had a lazy eye, so they put a patch over my good eye. The patch is a common “cure” for lazy eye; the doctor places it over the good eye attempting to strengthen the weak eye. Shortly after I started crawling the doctors realized that it wasn't just a lazy eye. After testing, they discovered that I had a condition called Optic Nerve Dysplasia, also often referred to as Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. I am one of the lucky ones... Optic Nerve Dysplasia is a condition that arises when the optic nerves go underdeveloped as a fetus and is the single leading cause of permanent legal blindness in children in the world. I am one of the lucky ones, because they know what caused mine, whereas most of the children go on questioning how theirs developed. Mine is caused by another medical condition called Growth Hormone Deficiency, which is like the seed to the tree of all my medical issues. Growth Hormone Deficiency, in simplistic terms, means the body can’t produce growth hormone on its own. Growth hormone controls growth as well as the regulation of sugar, fat metabolism, and possibly heart function. The growth hormone deficiency stunted my growth, which allowed for my optic nerves to go underdeveloped in the womb, which then caused my blindness in one eye. So by now, I’m sure you’re asking how this affects my vision in the good eye. Sadly, there's a high risk of it occurring in the future. My good eye makes up for the bad one. What that means is that my field of vision is stretched to compensate for losing such a large window of vision. However, because my good eye over compensates, it’s at huge risk for my retina to snap. If that were to happen, it would cause me to go blind in my other eye, which as you could imagine, would be devastating. Sadly, there’s a high risk of it occurring in the future. After all the science and the risk of it, is there anything that affects my daily life? Yes, there’s a great deal of it that affects my daily life. Without my full range of view, there are a lot of downsides. I have terrible hand-eye coordination and absolutely no depth perception. For most people, being blind would seem like the end of the world. I however, am extremely grateful and lucky to be able to at least see out of one eye. It’s given me the chance to educate people and learn more about others along the way. In the scheme of things, it’s not the worst thing. Besides, it’s always a great conversation starter. ALEXIS SCHEETZ / Alum
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