Superintendents add twist to football rivalry
Dr. Kendra Trail, Greencastle-Antrim School District superintendent, and Dr. Tod Kline, Waynesboro Area School District superintendent, met Wednesday morning and placed a friendly wager on the Oct. 20 football game between their rival high schools. The G-A Blue Devils will host Waynesboro for a 7 p.m. game against the Indians under the lights.
Recent history favors Kline winning the bet, as the Indians have taken the last three meetings with the Blue Devils.
The losing team's superintendent will wear the winning team's jersey on Tuesday, Oct. 24.
“The way this all came about was through Eric Holtzman, our business manager and Greencastle board member,” said Kline. “We were talking one day during our administrative meeting and we were looking at the dates of our football games and Eric said, ‘That’s the Greencastle game, you guys should think of doing a wager — it would be fun.’ I thought it was a great idea.”
Trail added, “I’m not a gambler, however when [Kline] approached me with the idea I thought, 'Yeah, this would be really great for our schools.'
"I think it’s not only about the win, but now the community and students will know that there is something additional attached to this," Trail continued. "Hopefully, they will have a greater sprit not only about their school and winning but the whole sense of working together for a common goal.”
Kline and Trail have a history of working with each other dating back to 2010 in when he was the superintendent of Southern Huntingdon County School District.
“Kendra was the superintendent at Southern Fulton where she had a great reputation for doing really good things,” said Kline. When the opportunity came up, Kline reached out and brought Trail to Southern Huntingdon as the principal and leader of literacy.
“It was great because we went from having the lowest reading in the elementary schools to having the top two, and I’ve known her ever since,” said Kline.
Kline and Trail both joined their districts earlier this year and are looking forward to working together more in the future and continuing the friendly rivalry.
“We're learning to be good neighbors and partner on some things and collaborate. Our communities are coming together. We can all work together for a common cause,” said Kline.
“We were looking for something that’s fun, we need to add more fun in what we do as educators, we wanted this to be about good clean fun,” Trail added.
Contact John Irwin at jirwin@therecordherald.com or at 717-762-2151.