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Light Rain Students victorious at NFL competition
The combined score of 214.7 that Saw Mill Road sixth-grader Jordan Jones racked up at the NFL’s recent regional Punt, Pass and Kick competition at the New Meadowlands Stadium wasn’t a personal best, but it was the highest score in the 10- and 11-year-old age group that day.
Punt, Pass and Kick “is a national skills competition for boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 15 to compete separately against their peers,” according to the contest’s website. Competitors punt, pass and place-kick. They are judged based on distance and accuracy.
Two North Bellmore Elementary School District students placed first at the regional competition, including Jones and Brandon Hislop, a Gunther Elementary School student. When all of the regional competitions are complete around the country, the top four finishers in each age group from each region will be invited to the national championships at an NFL playoff game.
The NFL has run the Punt, Pass and Kick program since 1961, and it has been a part of the North Bellmore School District’s phys. ed. curriculum for the past decade. Saw Mill and Gunther combined to send five students to the regional competition, held at a recent Giants game.
On the morning of Dec. 5, Jordan and his mother, Gillian Atkinson-Young, arrived in East Rutherford, N.J., by 7 a.m. Jordan and the other competitors were escorted through the stadium and out onto the field. The morning was cold, and Brandon said that probably affected his score. He added, “It felt like the field was smaller” than he had imagined.
Jordan said he was a little nervous, but his mom said that he kept his cool throughout the experience. “He’s not a nervous kid,” she said.
While it was Jordan’s first time at an NFL game, he is no stranger to football. He plays defensive end and kicks for the Bellmore Braves (in addition to playing forward for a soccer team in the Bellmore Police Activities League).
Hislop won the 6- and 7-year-old age group the same day, with a combined score of 111. Gunther phys. ed. teacher James Mulvey said that Brandon was ecstatic when he came to school after taking the No. 1 spot.
