You could call Northwestern a class act, except it's not an act

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Just got back from the annual Eastern Pennsylvania Football Officials Association annual banquet held in Coplay.

It's always a festive night. You can tell these guys enjoy what they do and there's generally a great deal of camaraderie within the group.

The highlight of evening -- besides the raffle giveaway which is coordinated with lots of laughs thanks to the comedy stylings of John Shigo, Tim Peters and Rick Leamon --  is the presentation of the Sportsmanship Award.

This award is not given away lightly. There's a lot of thought that goes into it.

And for the second time in five years, Northwestern Lehigh received the honor.

I have not covered Northwestern football in some time.

But I know the people involved there. I covered Josh Snyder when he played at Lehigh and have done several events with his brother Brett and his fight against ALS.

I have known AD Jason Zimmerman for years.

I don't know her quite as well as Zimmy, but I also know principal Aileen Yadush and her husband Jim and brother-in-law Mike. I covered Aileen's son, Patrick Wanamaker, when he played basketball at Northern Lehigh a few years ago on some very good Bulldogs teams.

I know these people well enough to know they're good people who want to do things the right way.

They don't give that philosophy lip service. They really want to do things, as Zimmerman said, "with class."

And judging by the comments of the officials, Northwestern suceeds mightily in their goal of doing things the right way.

We're not just talking football here. I know boys basketball coach Danny Eddinger and girls basketball coach Chris Deutsch. These are also quality people.

They wouldn't be working at Northwestern if they weren't.

I thought it was classy of Josh Snyder to pass the credit around during his acceptance speech, praising his coaches at Northwestern and Lehigh, including Kevin Higgins and Pete Lembo for teaching him to do it the rigth away. He also praised the administration at Northwestern.

Part of being a class act is to make sure you credit others before you take credit yourself and Josh did that tonight.

Northwestern had a great moment on the field a couple of weeks ago when it defeated Catasauqua, last year's sportsmanship award winner.

But I sensed that as great as that win was in beating an undefeated team, there was just as much pride in receiving the sportsmanship award on Thursday night.

As Zimmerman said in the print story I did, "When you come to New Tripoli, we treat you as best as we can treat you."

In the photo, from left to right, you have Jason Zimmerman, Aileen Yadush, Josh Snyder and EPFOA sportsmanship committee chair Mike Egge.