It’s pretty unusual for a high school student never to have been to a football game, but for junior Poncho Unrau, Sept. 28 was his introduction not just to watching the game from the stands but to being with the team in the player’s box.

  “The idea was mostly Coach [Steven] Flowers’s idea,” Coach Rhett Jones said. “He had Poncho in P.E., and he had asked Poncho if he would be interested in going to a football game.”

  Unrau sat in the players’ box with the junior varsity football team while the two coaches taught him about the game.

  “I think Poncho likes being with the football players more than anything else at the game,” Flowers said. “He has always liked competition and being a part of it.”

   While Unrau has seen football games on TV, he had never actually been to one himself.

  “I find the experience of going to the football games pretty enjoyable for me,” Unrau said. “I get to talk and cheer for our football players.”

  Jones said that they rarely see Unrau outside of school, so the time together with him was special.

  “My favorite part of going to the football game is talking to the football players,” Unrau said. “I like to meet new people there as well.”

  Being with the football players on the sideline put a smile on Unrau’s face and often a bag of peanut M&M’s in his hand.