Published: May 07, 2008 10:01 pm            

Valley youth to help Indy make Super Bowl bid

Indianapolis Super Bowl committee using central Indiana eighth-graders to deliver bid packages

TERRE HAUTE — She’s just in eighth grade, but Molly Nasser is going to play an important role in Indianapolis’ efforts to host the 2012 Super Bowl.

On Friday, she and her aunt, Mika Cassell, will fly to Dallas, Texas, to deliver a bid proposal personally to the Dallas Cowboys, one of 32 National Football League teams that will receive a bid package.

The Indianapolis Super Bowl bid committee is using 32 central Indiana eighth-graders — members of the class of 2012 — to deliver bid packages to each team. Each student will be accompanied by a chaperone.

The football team owners will decide May 20 and 21 which of three cities — Indianapolis, Phoenix or Houston — will host the 2012 Super Bowl.

Superintendents from 32 central Indiana school districts were asked to select a student. The bid committee didn’t establish selection criteria, although it did request a student with high academic standing “who will be an exemplary representative” of the student’s school and community.

Dan Tanoos, Vigo County School Corp. superintendent, chose Nasser, a student at Honey Creek Middle School. She is the daughter of Kelly and Steve Nasser.

Tanoos said he’s known Steve Nasser for a long time and described him as one of his best friends. Molly Nasser is an athlete and an exemplary student at Honey Creek Middle School, said Principal Pat Sheehan.

“I’m pretty excited about it. If we do get it, then all of us kids and our chaperones all get tickets to the Super Bowl,” Nasser said.

When she learned she had been selected, “I was kind of nervous at first because I thought I’d have to make a speech in front of them, and I’m not really good at that. But I was really excited that Danny picked me,” she said.

Nasser, her mom and Cassell attended a training session at the Indiana Convention Center last Sunday. Cassell is the principal at Fayette Elementary.

Tanoos believed it would be best if the student delivering the bid traveled with a relative.

Cassell said she’s thrilled to be able to accompany her niece to Dallas to deliver the bid package. “These boys and girls get to be ambassadors for the state of Indiana,” Cassell said.

If Indianapolis does win the bid, the students will be involved in events leading up to the 2012 Super Bowl, she said.

During Sunday’s training, students participated in their own “draft” to learn what cities they would visit. When they arrived, students selected sealed envelopes that contained a number, and Nasser, without realizing it, had chosen No. 1.

Later, after opening the envelopes, the students lined up in numerical order, and one by one, they selected one of 32 bags on a table that had a jersey of the team they would visit. The students didn’t know what team they had chosen until they opened the bag.

Because Nasser selected No. 1, she was the first in line to pick a bag. “Molly was the very first draft pick,” Tanoos quipped.

Kelly Nasser said that the family is proud that Molly will represent Terre Haute in the Indianapolis bid to win the 2012 Super Bowl.

It will be a whirlwind trip for Nasser and Cassell, who will leave Terre Haute on a Friday morning and return that night, Tanoos said. The Super Bowl bid committee is covering the cost of ground transportation, flight and meals.

Hopefully, the work of Nasser and Cassell will help Indianapolis win the 2012 Super Bowl, Tanoos said. Going to Dallas will be a learning experience for both, he said.

Students are being selected to deliver bid packages to “to show the effort that Indianapolis has made in preparing a bid for the 2012 Super Bowl and to make it a communitywide effort,” said Dianna Boyce, a spokeswoman for the bid committee.

The bid committee wants to convey to team owners that it’s not just people sitting around a table who have been involved in the process. The students are from 26 school districts throughout central Indiana, she said. (Not all 32 districts could participate).

The students won’t actually make a sales pitch, but they will have an opportunity to say a few words as they submit the bid package, Boyce said.

Mark Miles, president of the bid committee, said the Super Bowl opportunity “is enormously important for all of central Indiana and the state. It has a very important economic impact in terms of direct expenditures made by visitors.”

It would give the Hoosier state unprecedented national and international exposure, he said. In involving eighth-graders, “We’ve tried to say from the beginning, this needs to be the community’s bid,” Miles said. “We’ve tried in different ways to involve the community and establish ownership by the community.”

The hope is that for the 32 eighth-graders delivering the bid, “This will be a lifelong memory and a source of real pride,” Miles said.

        

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