By Johnny Sanders, Sports Editor
MOODY – Back on March 27, the Moody City Council proclaimed April 11 to be “411 Day” to honor student athletes at all of the schools in the Moody school system. What started as a simple day to honor those involved became a celebration that saw thousands come out to enjoy baseball games, a softball game and bounce houses, as well as food and dessert trucks. It all started with a glance at a calendar on Moody High School strength coach Cam Willis’ desk.
“It was literally just about a month or two ago,” Coach Willis said. “One day I was in my office and I just looked at the calendar and saw 411. We’ve kind of branded that. Softball, football, basketball, baseball … they all use it. 411 is the heartbeat of our city. And I texted Coach Ganus and told him we needed to make April 11 ‘411 Day’ for our city. He sent me back an emoji of Spongebob with his head popping off and he immediately called me and said, ‘Dude, we’ve got to do it!’”
411 Day became bigger than even visionaries like Willis and Ganus could have imagined. While hoping for big things, there was no way either of them saw this being as much of a success as it truly was.
“It was initially just going to be donuts and coffee for the teachers,” Willis said. “It ended up turning into ‘we can do that; we can do this.’ I tell people the reason Jake is so successful and is going to continue to be successful is because he is a visionary. With me and him both being visionaries, we see things and act on it. Two days later, I got in touch with Mayor Joe Lee and pitched the idea to make it a holiday. He was all on board and we made it a day. It started with football. Ironically, we’ve got Leeds on softball and baseball. So I wanted to make it about them and give them some juice and some energy. Then we though of making it a field day and then thought we need the whole community out here, and man, one thing led to another. One thing I love about this city is, once we have an idea, people just start helping us out. We got two food trucks; two dessert trucks and some other companies came out. The 411 boys and girls both got a dub tonight so that was big. I think the people enjoyed themselves. Special shout to Ashville Inflatables. We had Carpinettis and Chubbfathers from Alabaster out here. That’s that Jake Ganus connection. I didn’t imagine this. I saw big things, but I didn’t envision thousands of people coming out. This thing is going to continue. I think we are going to try to play Leeds every 411. You can’t really imagine something like this.”
Among those who were enjoying the inaugural 411 Day festivities was soon-to-be Moody graduate and Arkansas Razorback, Davion Dozier who said the following about the festivities:
“It means a lot for everybody to get out here and get involved in the sports and do some stuff together. I never thought about anything like this when I was younger or ever expect anything like this to happen here. I didn’t even think about college until last year.”
High school principal Dr. Chris Walters had this to say about the event:
“They came to me with an idea to celebrate the schools, the student athletes and we have just gotten so much community support over the last several years and we wanted to continue to celebrate our schools and our community. They came to me with idea to give all kids the opportunity to see the other campuses and we’ve got games going. Just let people get out to see the good things we are doing and give the community time. It started as a social media campaign to just say we are going to celebrate Moody on 411 Day. Then it caught wind and Cam and Coach Ganus started doing things, it started growing into this big event. It turned out to be a great day. We did a lot to celebrate the kids. We had a student/faculty basketball game and got all the Jr High kids down here and gave them a chance to celebrate their hard work. They are finished testing and everything and we just wanted to give them some time and celebrate the community. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”
Plans are already being made for next year with the hopes of scheduling Leeds again on April 11 in baseball and softball, as well as some other potential surprises for the students and community.