Dear Ponies Football Families, Loyal Football Supporters and the Stillwater Community:

The Ponies Touchdown Club felt it was important to reach out to our football community this week, in what would have been the first game of the 2020 football season.  The Coronavirus pandemic has put a stranglehold on normalcy across the world, our country and right here in the Valley.   We wanted each of you to know that the PTC has been thinking about our football families and community and hoping you are staying healthy and managing the challenges of this pandemic.  

The Ponies Touchdown Club was able to honor the graduating football seniors in the class of 2020 with one last time on the field at Pony Stadium on June 2nd, the day of their virtual graduation.  Each player received a bracelet with the coordinates to Pony stadium, courtesy of the PTC.  We felt it was important to recognize these student athletes who gave so much to our football program and were leaders in our high school and whose senior spring was interrupted with this virus.  Now, the PTC will be looking for ways to honor and support the current senior class whose fall football season has been postponed until spring 2021.  

We currently have at least 115 football players in grades 9-12 participating in the weight room.  The Ponies Touchdown Club financially supported the hiring of two football coaches to help oversee the weight room.  Due to COVID, there are fewer players allowed in the weight room at one time (pod sizes of 25).  By hiring these two coaches to support ETS, we opened more sessions and allowed an additional 50 spots to open up for our football players.  

Coach LaBore has always coached under the motto that we are not raising football players but instead, we are raising young men of character who love football.  The social unrest in our country and specifically right here in Minnesota and Stillwater is providing our football program with another, very important opportunity to teach and mold our young men.  Coach LaBore and the football coaching staff are evaluating our football program with an anti-racist lens to find any places where change and improvement can happen in regards to race and equity and will be intentional about teaching our football boys to be anti-racist leaders in our high school and community.  Together we can make the changes to our community that will make everyone feel safe and welcome and our football players will be called on to be leaders in this effort. We are excited to announce that Cornelius Rish, originally hired in the SAHS Social Studies Department and sophomore football, became the district cultural liaison. Coach Rish’s expertise  will be a great asset to our program.  

At this time, we are inviting our football community to continue your annual financial support of the Ponies Touchdown Club and Stillwater football.  We will be taking both mail-in and online donations to renew your 2020-2021 membership in the PTC.  Out of an abundance of caution, we will not be offering swag at this time.  Membership in the Ponies Touchdown Club is done annually and many of you have consistently supported the PTC each year since our inception back in 2012.  Your financial contributions this year will support the spring 2021 football season and will help to cover the operating costs that are typical in a fall season.  Having our membership drive now will allow you to claim your donation on your 2020 taxes. It is possible the spring 2021 season could be starting as early as March 1st and, as a result, we’d like to have the financial resources to rent practice time in the bubble for our teams if our turf fields are not ready for football practice.  If, for any reason the spring football season does not happen, we will earmark these donations to support the purchase of two big ticket items we have been pushing off for some time and we will also reserve money to help financially support players in the fall 2021 football season whose families may have been more harshly affected by this pandemic.  We are currently working with Adrenaline to figure out a safe way for our players to sell Pony cards this year, as this is half of our annual income.  Look for more information about Pony cards in the coming weeks.  

Please go to poniesfootball.com to donate and become a member in the Ponies Touchdown Club for 2020.  We are encouraging all our members to make your financial contribution by September 18th, the date that would have been this fall’s Homecoming game at Pony Stadium.  We would like to thank you in advance for your financial support of our football program.  We are anticipating that securing game day program sponsors may be a bit more difficult this year due to the pandemic’s affects on our local businesses, so your individual memberships are incredibly important to the financial stability of our program.  

If you would like to send a message of encouragement and support to our senior football players, please send it to: Ponies Football Seniors, PO Box 2064, Stillwater, MN 55082 and Coach LaBore will share your message with the boys.  

Thank you, stay safe and Go Ponies,

Deb Simcik

President, Ponies Touchdown Club