On Friday, February 2, 2024, James Franklin, football coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, landed his helicopter on the soccer field of Southern Lehigh High School. He was there to visit junior football player Andrew Olesh, who had an impressive 2023-2024 season with 53 catches, 973 yards, and 10 touchdowns. Olesh caught the attention of many Division I schools, including Penn State. Coach Franklin planned this event in collaboration with the administration at Southern Lehigh High School, and it took a lot of hard work to prepare for it.
“We were getting emails from Penn State University, and it took a lot of back and forth,” principal Mr. Joshua Miller said. “It ended up being anywhere, I’d say, between 15 to 20 hours of prep work to make sure that it didn’t negatively impact the school and we could do this pretty cool nice thing for Andrew.”
A significant event like this circulated excitement throughout the school, generating plenty of discussion among students.
“This event was so big that I heard rumors that it was happening before it actually happened,” junior MJ Edwards said. “I felt myself drawn to this experience because this doesn’t happen every day at our school, let alone any school.”
Although the landing went smoothly, the event had to be rescheduled numerous times throughout the day. There were constant emails and phone calls between the coordinates at Penn State and the administration at SLHS. The original landing time was 8:15 a.m., but had to be postponed several times until it was finally rescheduled for the end of the day.
“Originally, he was supposed to be here at 8:15, but because of the weather, we had to push it back to 1:30,” Mr. Miller said. “Then there was an issue at the other school [he visited], then it came to be at 2:00, but we couldn’t do it at 2:00 because that would be during dismissal, which would be a safety issue. All of that eventually led to it being around 2:30 to 2:45.”
Upon learning of the event, Andrew became even more interested in the Penn State program and his potential position on the team. He was thrilled at the prospect of meeting Coach Franklin and Penn State Football staff members.
“I knew about the visit beforehand, adding to my anticipation and making the experience more meaningful,” Olesh said. “I was very excited about the visit [and felt] valued by his effort to see me, which positively affected my thoughts about committing [and showed] me the program’s commitment to its athletes.”
The administration at SLHS worked very hard to pull off this fantastic and highly successful event for Olesh and the students.
“Overall, I love it for the school, but I love it for the kid the most,” Mr. Miller said. “For me personally, it’s just something that we do to make sure that the kids have a great experience.”
