Yesterday was a truly remarkable day for the students who make up The Hawks Sports Network.
In a pretty big event that had been in the planning stages for a couple of months, Brian Morry - the Executive Director of The Hall at Patriot Place - invited our broadcast team to do a talk show from the Patriots' Hall of Fame at Gillette Stadium. With the assistance of Mr. Thomas, Pete Sheppard - a 1985 Hendricken graduate and major Boston radio sports personality - agreed to venture up to the stadium as well and to participate in the talk show with our students.
Pete has always had nothing but fond memories of his time as a Hendricken student and greatly respects what the school offers to its young men. Whenever his alma mater comes calling, he always graciously finds a way to fit us in to his busy schedule. He's what every Hawk should be.
Viewers can still watch the entire talk show here.
Video streaming by UstreamThe show understandably began with questions from the kids about how Pete and Brian attained their respective levels of success (Brian has also been the editor at Patriots Football Weekly and a radio sports talk figure in Rhode Island at 790 theScore, when that AM station was still running an all-sports talk platform). Fortunately for all involved, the kids were more than willing to forgive Brian his one major shortcoming, in that he's a graduate of Pilgrim.
As Coach Belichek would say, "It is what it is", I suppose.
From there the discussion was obviously Patriots-driven, with some truly insightful questions coming from kids who know their stuff. Of course, Max Zweiner, our resident Instagram maven, felt compelled to round out the show by asking whether Pete was a dog or cat man, but, well....that's just Zweiner being Zweiner.
Coincidentally, our guys were even fortunate enough to be at The Hall with the World Championship of Finger Football being staged - a tournament won by, believe it or not, by The Network's own Zach Johnson. So, in addition to all the state titles adorning the hallowed halls of Hendricken, we're now also wearing the belt as the world champions of finger football.
Who knew?
From Gillette, Cam Brennan, Stone Freeman, and Max headed straight down to Thayer Arena and brought live Hawks hockey to the Hendricken community, a 4-1 win for our guys over the Mount (that post precedes this one here on The Network site).
It was a great day, a busy day, and a great experience for all the kids, made even better by Brian Morry's telling Mr. Thomas that he was so impressed with our kids that they're welcome back any time for another talk show - even possibly prior to a Patriots game.
Like we've said, folks - The Network is a force of nature.
